Australia Ensemble
The Australia Ensemble, resident at the University of New South Wales since its founding in 1980, is widely recognised as Australia’s leading chamber music ensemble. Seven principal instrumentalists form its core, joined by guests for standard repertoire and unusual combinations.
The Australia Ensemble lives up to its name on tour at home and abroad. It has appeared in every Australian state for Musica Viva and other presenters, and at the Adelaide Festival, the Festival of Sydney and the Barossa Festival.
International touring has been regular since 1982, with performances in the USA, the UK, the Soviet Union, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, New Zealand, Japan, China, India, South America and South Korea. In 1988 it made three overseas tours as Bicentenary events; the following year it was the featured group at the Hong Kong Festival of the Arts. It played a major role in the 1994 Adelaide Festival and, that October and November, toured to Vienna, Kaufbeuren, Halle, Dresden and Paris.
Australia Ensemble appears on
Classical Allusion: Selected Works by Julian Yu
Julian Yu takes famous pieces from the Western musical tradition and ornaments them in the manner of Chinese folk music, until the familiar becomes something newly made.
Members of Australia Ensemble
Geoffrey Collins
Geoffrey Collins’s flute has been the voice of much new Australian chamber music. His playing moves from buoyant Mozart quartets to driving Vine sonatas, dreamy Boyd and Westlake colours, and solo works written for him that treat the instrument without cliché.
Nigel Westlake
Westlake has played in fusion bands and soundtrack sessions, with Australia’s leading instrumental groups, and as a soloist with orchestras and classical ensembles in Australia and in major cities worldwide, from London and Paris to Tokyo, Beijing and New York.
Dene Olding
Australian violinist Dene Olding brings refined, expressive tone and sure intonation to chamber music that ranges from Schubert’s great C major Quintet to the full span of Peter Sculthorpe’s string quartets and new Australian scores.
Irena Morozov
Irena Morozov's viola anchors the Australia Ensemble's chamber sound across Australian commissions, Schubert's C major Quintet and Nigel Westlake's Antarctica film score, holding the middle voices with poise and warmth.
David Pereira
David Pereira is an Australian classical cellist, teacher and composer, born in Macksville, New South Wales, in 1953. He has premiered many concertos and solo works written for him by Australian composers, and served as principal cellist of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
David Bollard
David Bollard is a New Zealand-born classical pianist who has made his career in Australia as a performer, teacher and adjudicator. He was a founding member of the Australia Ensemble from 1980 until 1998.
Dimity Hall
Dimity Hall's violin is the quiet force inside the Australia Ensemble and Goldner String Quartet: refined tone locked with Dene Olding, chamber playing that can turn Schubert unearthly and Sculthorpe fierce without ever raising its voice for effect.
Julian Smiles
Julian Smiles's cello underpins the Goldner String Quartet's complete Sculthorpe cycle and the Australia Ensemble's chamber recordings, from Schubert's String Quintet and Shostakovich's Piano Quintet and Trio to the Mozart and Brahms clarinet quintets.