Natsuko Yoshimoto (Round One)

Born in Japan, Natsuko began playing the violin at the age of three and won a full scholarship to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England when she was eleven.  She received direct guidance and teaching under Lord Menuhin and Wen Zhou Li. She continued her studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with distinction in 1998.

She has won many prizes in international competitions including the Wieniawski, the Yehudi Menuhin and the Tibor Varga. She received the Gold Medal in both the prestigious 1994 Shell/London Symphony Orchestra Competition and the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa Award. In 2007 Natsuko was presented with the Iwaki Award for outstanding achievement as a  Japanese artist.

Natsuko has appeared frequently at major international festivals throughout Europe, U.S.A, Asia and Australia. As a chamber musician she has collaborated with artists such as Yehudi Menuhin, Heinz Holliger, Stephen Kovacevich, Brett Dean,  Stephen Osbourne and Christina Ortiz.

In 1993, she was honoured to perform solo in the presence of the Queen and the Royal Family at Buckingham Palace. Her debut recital at London's Wigmore Hall in 1998 with Freddy Kempf received widespread critical acclaim.

In great demand as a soloist,  she has appeared with many world renowned orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia (London), Halle Orchestra,  Odense  Symphony (Denmark), Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. She has worked with many leading conductors and formed a special relationship with both Yehudi Menuhin and Hiroyuki Iwaki over many years. 

In 2008/9 season, she will be performing concertos with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Jenaer Philharmonic (Germany), Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa.
 
In 2001, she became the leader of the Australian String Quartet and is presently first violinist of the Grainger Quartet and Sydney Soloists.  She has been invited to be a Guest Concert Master by prominent orchestras. Additionally, Natsuko has given many master classes and workshops in renowned musical institutions and conservatoires around the world.

Carl Pini (Semi Final and Final)

Carl Pini is a musician of international reputation. He began his career in London in 1960 as Leader of the London String Quartet and from 1968 spent six years in Sydney forming the Sinfonia of Sydney and the Carl Pini Quartet with whom he made three world tours. He also conducted the Sydney, South Australian and West Australian Orchestras and conducted the English Chamber Orchestra at the 1974 Edinburgh Festival.

In 1975 he was appointed Concertmaster of the Philharmonia in London and during the next six years appeared as soloist in concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Prokofiev with Riccardo Muti, Sir Adrian Boult and Zdenek Maçal.

In 1980 Carl Pini was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and from 1983 to 1988 he was Artistic Director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, leading the ACO on its Bicentennial Tours of the USA and Europe. He has conducted several seasons of opera, including La Boheme, Don Pasquale, Julius Caeser and Le Cinesi.

Carl Pini was Concertmaster of the Melbourne Symphony from 1990 until 1995. In 1992 he premiered the Richard Mills violin concerto and since 1990 has conducted the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on several occasions.
In 1998 the Carl Pini Quartet performed the complete cycle of Beethoven Quartets. He plays with various chamber music groups including Pini, Hazelwood & Friends which perform an annual concert series at Turramurra Uniting Church.

Carl Pini is an Honorary Member of the Royal College of Music in London, and has taught violin and conducting at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, Melbourne and Monash Universities and the Conservatorium of Music and the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney. He is currently the Artistic Director for the Riverina Summer School for Strings.

Patricia Pollett (Semi Final)

Patricia Pollett is one of Australia’s leading string players. A graduate of the University of Adelaide, she has received numerous awards, including a Churchill Fellowship and an Australia Council International Study Grant. She studied with Beryl Kimber in Adelaide, Peter Schidlof of the Amadeus Quartet and at the Royal College of Music in London, and with Bruno Giuranna at the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin. She has extensive international performance experience, particularly as violist with the Italian string ensemble I Solisti Veneti, and was a founding member of the contemporary ensemble Perihelion.

Patricia Pollett is an advocate of new music for the viola, and has commissioned, performed and recorded several new solo works by leading Australian composers. She was honoured for this work in 2004 with an APRA Australian Music Centre Classical Music Award for the Most Distinguished Contribution to the Presentation of Australian Composition by an Individual.

She is active as a recitalist and soloist in concerts and broadcasts throughout Australia. She is in demand as a teacher, giving masterclasses for leading education institutions in Australia and overseas, and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland.

Chris Kimber (Semi Final)

Christopher Kimber began his studies in Tasmania, Australia and later was awarded scholarships to continue studies in London and New York. He studied at the Juilliard School under Ivan Galamian and later continued studies with Oscar Shumsky in New York. Christopher Kimber has performed on a “Soloists from Marlboro” (Director, Rudolf Serkin) U.S.A. State Department tour of Europe and Israel, played in the distinguished William Primrose Quartet in a tour of Japan, and was also a member of the Boston Symphony and performed as soloist and concertmaster of the Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler. In Australia, Christopher has performed as a soloist with the Queensland, Melbourne, South Australian, Tasmanian and Sydney Symphony Orchestras.

During the summers in Australia, Christopher has performed and been a guest faculty member at the Riverina Summer School for Strings at the Charles Sturt University in NSW. His performances there attracted praise: “brilliantly assured realisation of Ysaye’s Sonata for Solo Violin” from the Canberra Times critic.

Christopher Kimber’s previous teaching posts include Artist-in-Residence and Associate Professor at the Ohio State University, Associate Professor at Oberlin College, U.S.A., and Head of String Department and Senior Lecturer at the Sydney Conservatorium.

Christopher has been invited to present recitals, master-classes and lectures for various organisations including the Suzuki Talent Education Association of Australia,  presented classes at the Open Academy, Sydney Conservatorium and will give a Master Class at the Australian String Academy in January 2008.

Christopher has performed recitals with Gerard Willems in Hong King, Malaysia and Singapore in addition to his annual appearances with Gerard in Narrabri N.S.W. at the Narrabri KeyPlay Festival.

Christopher Kimber continues teaching part-time at the Sydney Conservatorium. Students from Christopher Kimber’s class have been awarded major scholarships and awards in Australia and have enjoyed success overseas in Europe and the U.S.A.

Miwako Abe (Final)

Miwako Abe’s distinguished career began when she started playing the violin at the age of five. After her study at the prestigious Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo where she studied violin with Toshiya Eto and Hideo Saito, she became a prize-winning graduate of the Guildhall School of Music in London. Her teachers at the Guildhall School of Music include world-renowned artists such as Yfrah Neaman and William Pleeth. Here her selection for the BBC Television masterclass with Yehudi Menuhin was a tribute to her youthful mastery of the violin, which received further recognition by the award of the prestigious Boise Foundation Scholarship from London. This brought her to complete her studies at the Salzburg Mozarteum, where she became assistant to the celebrated violinist-conductor Sandor Végh. Her London debut recital at the Wigmore Hall received high praise from critics in The Times and The Daily Telegraph.

Ms Abe has given numerous performances as soloist and in chamber music ensembles, steadily enhancing her reputation across five continents as an exceptionally gifted artist. In England she played with the world-famous Academy of St. Martin-in -the Fields and with the English Chamber Orchestra, and she has performed as a concerto soloist with orchestras as well as in chamber music in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Japan, Israel, Jordan, Taiwan, Turkey, India, New Zealand, and the United States. She performed in many international festivals including the Salzburg Festival, Festival de Otonio, the Ankara Festival, the Adelaide International Festival, the Perth International Festival, and Melbourne International Festival.

Since coming to Australia in 1982, Miwako Abe has performed with major orchestras and ensembles, among them the Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, the Sydney String Quartet, the Australia Ensemble, the Australian Chamber Soloists, Flederman, Pipeline, and Soloists of Australia. As a member of the colourful Austral Trio-violin, flute, and guitar-Miwako Abe took part in numerous tours sponsored by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, and Musica Viva, both within Australia and overseas.

A frequent performer on ABC Classic FM, as well as on overseas networks, Miwako Abe has worked live on air, in recordings, and in recitals with many distinguished associate artists, such as Ian Munro, Stephen McIntyre, Frank Wibaut, Roy Howat, and Michael Kieran Harvey. Her most recent CD recording of the selected American contemporary compositions for the New York-based American record label, New World Records received critical acclaim from Gramophone magazine.  New compositions for violin were written and dedicated to her by prominent Australian composers including Larry Sitsky, Nigel Westlake, Wendy Hiscocks, Laurence Whiffin, Julian Yu, and Mark Pollard.

Ms Abe is regarded as an outstanding performer as well as a highly successful teacher of the violin.  She is currently Associate Professor of Music and Head of the String Department at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Many of her students have been successful in becoming prominent professional musicians, actively performing in Europe, the United States, and in Australia. Her reputation continues to bring invitations to give recitals and masterclasses at universities and conservatoria in Australia and overseas including the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, the Mozarteum in Salzburg as well as the Australian National Academy of Music.

Patrick Wong (Final)

Patrick Wong moved to Sydney from Hong Kong in 1980.  He began learning violin at the age of 4 as a student of the Suzuki method with which he
remained for over 10 years, studying mainly with Mr. Yasuki Nakamura.  In 1995 Patrick obtained an L.Mus.A and the following year was a finalist in
the National Youth Concerto Competition in Brisbane, playing the Tchaikovsky concerto under the direction of John Curro.  He won the Kendall National Violin Competition in 2000, the same year he graduated from a combined Bachelor of Science / Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New South Wales. 

In 2002 after two years of work in the IT industry he decided to do a Masters of Performance at the Sydney Conservatorium with Goetz Richter, and following graduation in 2005 successfully auditioned for a permanent position with the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra.  In July 2008 Patrick was a concertmaster at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan.