Greta Bradman
soprano
Soprano Greta Bradman is described as one of “Australia’s finest young singers” and as an “exceedingly intelligent and perceptive musician” (The Advertiser, 2009). Until late 2009, Greta maintained singing as a passion and a rather successful hobby – juggling it around full-time study towards her Master of Clinical Psychology and her PhD (psychology). With the encouragement of music mentors including Malcolm Martineau, Phillip Moll and Simon Kenway, and her primary singing teacher Rosalind Martin, in 2009 Greta decided to embrace singing as her primary career. 2010 represents the first year in which her decision takes effect, and her career is progressing at a brisk pace.
Greta has recently presented concerts with ensembles including the Australian String Quartet, Adelaide Chamber Players, Adelaide Baroque, Zephyr String Quartet, Syzygy Ensemble, Soundstream New Music Ensemble, Kegelstatt Ensemble, the Langbein String Quartet, and in association with outstanding musicians from around Australia and beyond, as well as appearing as guest soloist for a number of choirs and vocal ensembles. She has also worked as an associate producer on an album for ABC Classics, an experience she cherished for its different set of triumphs and challenges.
Highlights for 2010 are many and varied. The year began with the arrival of Greta’s second child, Caspar (early January) – a definite highlight! In February 2010 Greta signed with Sony Music Entertainment, as one of only two classical artists on their register in Australia and the Asia Pacific. In March she recorded her first album for Sony, “Forest of Dreams”, with renowned musician, producer and director, John Foreman. The album is an exquisite collection of lullabies from around the world; it is being released in early August 2010. In March Greta also recorded a duet (“I Believe”) with Mark Vincent for his second album “Compass”, which peaked at number 2 on the Australian ARIA charts (Sony Music, released April 2010). In April, Greta toured to Victoria and WA with the Australian String Quartet, to critical acclaim. She and the ASQ are set to follow up the tour by recording some of the songs they presented with ABC Classics (Greta securing special release from Sony in order to do so).
Greta is also a semi-finalist in the Mietta singing competition (early July 2010) – marking the first vocal competition she has entered – and, following the release of Forest of Dreams in August, is touring as special guest on UK baritone Aled Jones’ 2010 national tour of Australia. In addition, Greta will present a range of recitals and concerts around Australia. She balances her music with being ‘mama’ to her two young sons.
Kristian Chong
piano
Kristian Chong is one of Australia’s leading pianists. As concerto soloist he has appeared on numerous occasions with the Adelaide, Melbourne, Queensland, Sydney and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, and many orchestras in the UK and China. Performance highlights include Rachmaninoff’s third concerto with the Sydney Symphony, Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody with the Beijing International Festival Chorus Orchestra, Britten’s Piano Concerto and Young Apollo with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and the complete Op.32 Rachmaninoff Preludes in the UK and in Australia. Recent performances have included Beethoven’s Emperor concerto and Saint–Saëns second piano concerto in the UK, Mozart’s Concerto for two pianos with Caroline Almonte and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and chamber and solo recitals in Hong Kong, Shanghai and at the Huntingdon Festival.
Kristian has twice been the recipient of the Royal Academy of Music’s highest performing accolade – the Dip. RAM, and has also won awards for the best postgraduate recital and the most outstanding returning student. His many competition successes include winning the Symphony Australia Young Performers Award (keyboard) and the Australian National Piano Award, as well as being a major prizewinner in the third Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition.
Leigh Harrold
piano
Pianist Leigh Harrold has emerged in recent years as “a musician of rare talent and intelligence” (The Advertiser) and is one of Australia’s busiest and most sought-after piano players, recently winning the Adelaide Critics’ Circle prize for Best Emerging Artist of 2005.
Born in Whyalla, South Australia, Leigh completed undergraduate and post-graduate studies in Adelaide with concert pianist Gil Sullivan. During this time he had many competition successes including being a National Finalist in the Young Performer Awards, a semi-finalist in the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, twice winner of the Geoffrey Parsons Memorial Award and recipient of the prestigious Beta Sigma Phi Classical Music Award. He moved to Melbourne in 2003 to take up a full scholarship at the Australian National Academy of Music and in 2004 was made the Academy Fellow — the first person in the institution’s history to be chosen as such after just one year of study.
As a soloist, Leigh has performed with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the ANAM Chamber Orchestra and the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra. He has premiered works by Australian composers in Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide and been broadcast on ABC-FM, 3MBS, 4MBS and 5MBS. He maintains a fruitful and ongoing relationship with the composers of The Firm and has had several piano works written for him as a result. He is their Performer in Residence for 2006.
As a chamber musician he has earnt an international reputation, having performed as duo partner with such luminaries as Thomas Reibl, lecturer in viola at the Salzburg Mozarteum; Michael Cox, principal flautist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra; Daniel Gaede, ex-concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; Swedish cellist Mats Lidstrom; and British pianist Mark Gasser. Of the performance with the latter, The Melbourne Age remarked, “As an advertisement for the high standard of public music-making produced by the academy, it would be hard to go beyond the experience of hearing [the] overpowering, white-hot expression of compressed ecstasy realised with extraordinary cohesion and eclat by these gifted young musicians.”
Mark Kruger
Piano
Based in Berlin, Mark Kruger is a laureate of the Orleans International Piano Competition and his performances have been acclaimed around the world. His Spanish debut was hailed by El Pais as “brilliant both technically and musically… it was the revelation of a great artist”, his Purcell Room performance of the ‘Concord’ Sonata by Charles Ives for the Park Lane Group was described as “hugely impressive” in The Times, showing a “command of pianistic color in everything from the clanging chords to the dusky musings”, whilst a performance of Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto in Melbourne was hailed by The Age as “masterful”.
He has appeared on television and radio in Europe, Canada, Asia and Australia. International festival appearances include the Saint Ricquer Festival in France, the Festival Ensems in Spain, the Melbourne International Festival, the Melbourne International Brass Festival, the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, and the Brisbane Biennial.
Mark Kruger has an extensive and varied repertoire at his command. Central to his programmes are large scale works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, some of which are rarely performed. Amongst these are Beethoven’s ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata, Chopin’s 24 Etudes in a single concert, Prokofiev’s Ninth Sonata, the ‘Concord’ Sonata from memory by Charles Ives, and Witold Lutoslaswki’s recently-discovered Piano Sonata. A theatrical performance of George Crumb’s Makrokosmos Vol. 1 elicited the following praise from the composer: “both technically and musically you showed an incredible mastery of my Makrokosmos piano idiom”. He is also closely associated with the works of Sergei Prokofiev, and was the Artistic Director of ABC Classic FM’s “Melbourne Prokofiev Project”, a series of live broadcasts dedicated to the composer which contained the complete piano sonatas. Mark Kruger is also a strong advocate of new music. He has had numerous compositions written for him, and has given world premiere performances of works by composers such as Barry Conyngham, Stephen Cronin, Michael Gallant, Mark Grandison, Stuart Greenbaum, Antonio Gomez Schneekloth, Andrew Schultz, Colin Spiers, Nicholas Vines, and Natalie Williams.
As well as having studied in his native Australia with Stephen Savage and Ian Holtham, Mark Kruger studied at the Moscow State Conservatoire with Professor Lev Vlassenko and at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Frank Wibaut. During the summer season he performed in Australia, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Rome, Copenhagen, Oslo and Warsaw. In 2009 he will record the ‘Concord’ Sonata by Charles Ives for Tall Poppies, and in 2010 the Complete Works for Piano by Lutoslaswki for Naxos.
Robert Macfarlane
tenor
Tenor Robert Macfarlane completed a Bachelor of Music in December 2006 (with High Distinction in Voice Performance) and graduated with First–class Honours in December 2007 from the Elder Conservatorium at the University of Adelaide in South Australia. He studied under the head of vocal studies Keith Hempton. He has also been awarded a Helpmann Optus Mentorship to study with soprano Merlyn Quaife in Melbourne and continues studies in Adelaide with Mezzo–Soprano Cheryl Pickering and Tenor Patrick Power. Robert has participated in Masterclasses and private lessons with many distinguished singers, teachers and repetiteurs including Simon O’Neill, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Roy Howat, David Hamilton, Ralf Ernst, Kenneth Griffiths and David Harper. He also studied and performed in recital with pianist Malcolm Martineau during his Adelaide residency in 2008 which was recorded by ABC Classic FM for broadcast in 2009. Robert will continue intensive German and Italian language study at the University of Adelaide this year. Robert recently won the 3rd Annual Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Aria competition for oratorio singing – which has resulted in a contract with the choir for 2010. Robert will also undertake studies at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig and with French Baroque specialist Howard Crook in Paris in 2010.
