Young Performers Awards
7pm Friday, August 27
QPAC Concert Hall
For the past 65 years, the ABC Symphony Australia Young performers Awards has provided aspiring young musicians the opportunity to perform with Australia's major orchestras in a quest to be named ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year. The competition has been an important launch-pad for many successful music careers, unearthing talents such as Simon Tedeschi, Diana Doherty, Adele Anthony, Roger Woodward and Ian Munro.
2010 Grand Finalists
Oliver She (Brisbane) piano
Oliver She has performed with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (Liszt Concerto
in E flat, and Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on
a theme of Paganini and Concerto No.3); the West Australian Symphony (Liszt
Concerto in E flat); and the St Lucia Orchestra (Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1,
and Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a theme of
Paganini). Other performances include the Tyalgum Festival of Classical Music,
Brisbane City Hall, Byron Music Society, University of Tasmania Conservatory of
Music, Friends of SIPCA Christmas concert, and the University of Queensland
Music School concert series.
Oliver's awards include first prize at the 2003 and 2005 Yamaha Australian Youth Piano Competition (junior and intermediate divisions) and first prize in the ASKM Gold Coast Open Piano Competition in 2008. Oliver reached the Grand Final of the 2005 ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards. He was awarded the AMEB Hugh Brandon Memorial Scholarship in 2005.
In 2009 Oliver won 3rd prize in the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition in Brisbane, and was a prize-winner at the Southern Highlands International Piano Competition; in both events he was awarded prizes for the best performance of an Australian composition. He reached the quarter finals of the 2008 Seoul International Music Competition.
Oliver currently studies with Max Olding and Pamela Page at the University of Queensland School of Music, where he is undertaking a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance.
Ashley William Smith (Melbourne) clarinet
Ashley William Smith holds a Bachelor of Music with first class
Honours from the University of Western Australia, where he studied with Allan
Meyer. Since 2008 he has studied at the Australian National Academy of Music
and in 2010 is an Academy Fellow.
Ashley has received many awards for musical and academic excellence, including the Vose Prize, Lady Callaway Medal, Edith Cowan Prize and the Sir Harold Bailey Award, and he was nominated for the J.A. Wood Prize as the dux of the University. In 2009 he won both the equal-first jury prize and the audience prize at the ANAM Concerto Competition. Most recently, Ashley was awarded a full scholarship to attend Yale University in the US where he will study under internationally-renowned clarinettist, David Shifrin.
Ashley's principal area of interest is in contemporary music and experimenting with new approaches to music presentation. It is his ambition to establish a full-time touring new music ensemble whose focus is to bring new music to new audiences through the commissioning of new works and collaboration with other art forms. He has a special interest in the music of Magnus Lindberg and is currently working on a project to perform the Finnish composer's complete clarinet works in collaboration with ANAM. This project has included several Australian premieres and the Melbourne premiere of the Lindberg Clarinet Concerto with Brett Dean and the ANAM Orchestra.
Ashley also has a special interest in Australian music and had the distinction of becoming the second person to perform Ross Edwards' Clarinet Concerto.
Richard Pollett (Brisbane) violin
Richard Pollett was born in Adelaide in 1986 and began his
violin studies at the age of five. In 2007 he undertook a Masters diploma with
Italian violinist Massimo Quarta in Lugano, Switzerland at the Conservatorio
della Svizzera Italiana, completing it in January this year with highest
honours. Richard currently studies at the Australian National Academy of Music
in Melbourne with Paul Wright. Before travelling abroad, Richard completed a
Bachelor of Music Honours degree, studying with Michele Walsh at the Queensland
Conservatorium Griffith University, attaining first class honours and the
University Medal, and then a Master of Philosophy degree at the University of
Queensland.
Richard participated in the Stage III finals of the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards in 2006 and 2007, performing with the Tasmanian and Queensland Symphony Orchestras. He has won prizes in the Kendall National Violin Competition and the North Queensland Concerto and Vocal Competition, and in 2007 he won the Llewellyn Memorial Fund's major award.
Richard's recent performances include Bach's Concerto for Two Violins with the Orchestra of Lugano, Saint-Saëns' Introduction and Rondo capriccioso with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No.1 with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Oleg Caetani in 2007 as rehearsal soloist.
Richard has participated in several music festivals in Europe including the Kronberg Violin Masterclasses and Lenk Summer Academy in 2009, and the Charleston Manor Festival with cellist Robert Cohen in 2008.
In 2004 Richard toured Europe with the Australian
Youth Orchestra and in 2006 participated in the AYO Young Australian Concert
Artists program. He has participated in masterclasses with Ivry Gitlis, Howard
Davis, Rudolf Koelman, Oleh Krysa, Charles Castleman and the Henschel Quartet.
Click here for more information about YPA.
