2006 Competition
Winners
Judges
Performers
Alexandra Sherman
Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Alexandra Sherman studied piano in Jerusalem and Singing in Melbourne. An honours graduate of the VCA, Alexandra has received the Queen’s Trust for Young Australians Award, The University of Melbourne Clarke Scholarship, The Australian Singing Competition comprising The Marianne Mathy and Joan Sutherland Awards, Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award and the Countess of Munster Star Award. These scholarships enabled her to study at the Royal College of Music, London, where she completed her post-graduate studies and received operatic training. Alexandra performs widely in oratorio and recital in Europe, Australia and the UK. Concert highlights include Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer, Berlioz’ Les Nuits d’Eté, Elgar’s Sea Pictures, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, De Falla’s El Anor Brujo and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. In 2005 Alexandra was accepted into the Centre Français de Promotion Lyrique in Paris as a Fiche Artist, made her début at Wigmore Hall, and covered the roles of Juno and Ino in Semele at the Scottish Opera, and the role of Minskwoman in Jonathan Dove’s Flight at Glyndebourne. In 2006 Alexandra will make her début at the English National Opera in John Adams’ Nixon in China, and will appear at the BBC Proms.
Amir Farid
Amir Farid completed a Bachelor of Music (Honours) and Master of Music degree at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne and has been working and developing under the guidance of Professor Ronald Farren-Price. He attended the Australian National Academy of Music where he studied with Rita Reichman, Geoffrey Tozer and Timothy Young.
In 2009, he graduated with distinction as a Scholar supported by the Gordon Calway Stone Memorial Award at the Royal College of Music London, studying with Andrew Ball.
He has performed concerti with the Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, Australian Youth Orchestra, Melbourne Youth and ANAM Orchestras, including Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.
As a chamber musician, Amir is pianist of the Benaud Trio winning the Piano Trio prize at the 2005 Australian Chamber Music Competition, and with whom he undertook a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. As an accompanist, he was winner of the prize for best pianist at the 2006 Mietta Song Recital award, and the 2007 Geoffrey Parsons Award.
In 2013 he was awarded the inaugural Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust Repetiteur scholarship.
Amir is the recipient of various awards and scholarships, including the 2006 Australian National Piano Award Australian Music Foundation, the Ian Potter Cultural Trust, the Royal Overseas League, the Swiss Global Artistic Foundation, the Tait Memorial Trust and the University of Melbourne’s Donovan Johnson Memorial Scholarship.
Program
Semifinal
Bellini
Vaga luna
La farfalletta
Fauré
Automne Op18 No 3
Fleur jetée Op 39 No 2
Gavrilin
She who suffers
from Russian Songbook
Final
Dargomyzhsky
The night sky sends a gentle
breeze
I love him still
Berlioz
Villanelle
Absence
L’île inconnue
from Les Nuits d’Eté
Britten
O waly, waly
Hughes
I know where I’m going
Britten
The Salley Gardens
de Falla
Jota
Nana
Polo
from Siete canciones populares españolas
Amanda Cole
Amanda Cole holds a music degree from the University of Melbourne, specialising in early music, and is in her fourth year of the Master of Music performance programme at the Victorian College of the Arts. Amanda also studies performance and the Alexander Technique with Catherine Madden in Seattle, Washington. Amanda’s operatic roles and oratorio appearances include Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas for Eastern Metropolitan Opera, and Second Witch in the same opera for St Martin’s Theatre. Solo appearances with various ensembles and orchestras include Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s St John Passion, Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G Minor, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres and Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen. In 2000 Amanda was awarded a Churchill Fellowship for studies in language coaching in France, Germany and Italy. She has taught Languages for Singers at the Victorian College of the Arts, the University of Melbourne and the Australian Catholic University. She is currently focussing on new and different ways of approaching performance and voice teaching which differ from the traditional.
David McNicol
David McNicol’s interest in accompanying began as a teenager accompanying singers and instrumentalists at eisteddfods and musical societies. He graduated as a soloist from the Melba Conservatorium, where he studied accompaniment with Margaret Schofield, and was later awarded a scholarship to study accompanying in London with Geoffrey Parsons. In 1990 David joined Opera Australia as trainee repetiteur, accompanying principal artists in recitals throughout Australia. He has served as official accompanist for the Herald Sun Aria final, the German-Australian Operatic Award, the Welsh Singer of the Year Award and the Lieder Society’s Liederfest. David has performed as soloist and accompanist in many live broadcasts for ABC Classic FM. Internationally, David has performed throughout Asia and Europe. In 2004 he toured South Korea, accompanying Helen Noonan in Chamber Made Opera’s production of Recital. Official accompanist and vocal coach at the Melba Conservatorium, David is very involved in the musical life of Melbourne as a freelance pianist and accompanist.
Program
Semifinal
Schumann
Er ist gekommen
Schubert
Der Zwerg
Debussy
La chevelure
Rorem
How do I love thee?
Love cannot fill
Final
Brahms
Vergebliches Ständchen
Meine Liebe ist grün
Wolf
Klinge, klinge mein Pandero
Liebe mir im Busen
In dem Schatten meiner Locken
from the Spanisches Liederbuch
Debussy
La flûte de Pan
Le tombeau des naïades
from Trois Chansons de Bilitis
Montsalvatge
Cuba dentro de un piano
Chevere
Cancion de cuna para
dormir a un negrito
Canto negro
from Cinco Canciones
Negras
Benjamin Martin
Benjamin Martin holds a Bachelor of Music Performance (1999) from the University of Tasmania and a Master of Music Performance (2005) from the University of Melbourne. Benjamin’s diverse repertoire includes Monteverdi’s II Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Bach’s St John and St Matthew Passions, Beethoven’s Mass in C, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s St Nicholas and Nelson Masses, Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, Coronation Mass and Requiem and Vespers, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle, Hindemith’s Hin und Zurück, and the Australian premières of Frigyes Hidas’s Requiem and Brenton Broadstock’s Stations of the Cross. Competition highlights include: Finalist – 3MBS Young Performer of the Year 2004, Winner – The Armstead Singing Award 2004, and Winner – Nino Sanciolo Award – Mietta Song Recital Award 2004. Currently under the tutelage of Anna Connolly, engagements for 2006 include tenor soloist for the Bach Cantata Programme at St John’s Southgate, and Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor for the Melbourne Chorale at Hamer Hall. In August 2006 Benjamin will perform as soloist in Purcell’s King Arthur as a Young Artist at the prestigious Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh (UK).
Amanda Hodder
Amanda Hodder holds a Masters in Music from the University of Melbourne. During her undergraduate studies, she won awards for collaborative pianism and was featured on ABC Classic FM’s Rising Stars program. Since moving to Melbourne in 1998, Amanda has worked as an accompanist for all the major Melbourne universities and is currently the on staff accompanist for the voice department at the Victorian College of the Arts. As a repetiteur, Amanda has worked for all the major Melbourne opera companies and Opera Australia. In 2003 Amanda won the major ensemble award at the National Liederfest. As a Music Director, Amanda has worked on such shows as Tick Tic….BOOM!, The Threepenny Opera, and The Wild Blue. In 2004 Amanda won the Hugh D. T. Williamson Accompanist’s Award at the Mietta Song Recital, an award which secured her work at l’Académie Internationale d’Eté de Nice. The award also enabled Amanda to spend most of 2005 studying in Paris and Southern Germany. In 2007 Amanda was the recipient of the Lady Hamer Award, an award made specifically for pianist who are interested in working collaboratively with other musicians. In May 2008 Amanda was the recipient of the Geoffrey Parsons Award and was a MacDonald Trust Scholar at the VCA for 2008. On television, Amanda has worked with The Choir of Hard Knocks, performed with Ronan Keating on Rove Live, and continues to perform for ABC Classic FM and 3MBS.
Program
Semifinal
Schubert
Ganymed
Duparc
Le manoir de Rosemonde
Sibelius
War det en dröm? Op 37 No 4
Kay
She tells her love
The nightingale has a lyre
of gold
Two Encore Songs
Final
Berlioz
Villanelle
Sur les lagunes
L’île inconnue
from Les Nuits d’Eté
Rachmaninov
Vesennije vody Op 14 No 11
Son Op 38 no 5
Strauss
Morgen!
Allerseelen
Vine
Love me sweet
Bridge
Love went a riding
David Greco
A truly international singer, Australian baritone David Greco has been based in the Netherlands and Germany for the last 7 years. David has sung throughout Europe’s finest concert halls, from Théâtre des Champs Elysées to the Vienna Konzerthaus, last year making his debut at the Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.
He has been engaged by some of the most exceptional ensembles, most recently appearing at Festival Aix-en Provence with Freiburg Barokorchester, and at Glyndebourne Festival Opera with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He has toured throughout Europe extensively with orchestras The Academy of Ancient Music under Richard Egarr and Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Ton Koopman.
Since first appearing with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra in 2003, David has been engaged frequently as a soloist with the nation’s flagship orchestras and ensembles, including the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and Pinchgut Opera. In 2015 David was given the honour of being the first singer to work with the Australia’s all period classical orchestra, the Australian Haydn Ensemble.
In April last year, he was invited to perform Aaneas in Purcell’s Dido & Aaneas in Leo Schofield’s newly formed Brisbane Baroque Festival. This year he has been invited back to the festival to sing King Arthur of Purcell. Whilst in the UK David was bass Lay Clark at Westminster Abbey Choir, and was given the privilege to sing with the Sistine Chapel Choir in Rome throughout 2014. Recent engagements include Wagner in Gounod’s Faust in a co-production with Lyric Opera Chicago in the Macau International Music Festival and concerts tours throughout Switzerland, Germany, Holland and France.
2016 sees David’s debut as a principle artist with Opera Australia in Prokopiev’s The Love of Three Oranges & The Eighth Wonder. He will also feature in concerts with Sydney Symphony, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and the Sydney Chamber Choir In May David will perform Pergoloesi’s La Serva Padrona and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle for Canberra International Music Festival. David’s Naxos Recording debut was recently released ‘Poems of Love & War’, featuring arias by the late New Zealand composer, Jack Body.
Paul Myers
Paul Myers graduated with distinction from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where he majored in accompaniment, studying ensemble with David Miller and solo piano with Gerard Willems. Paul also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Accompaniment. Scholarships include the Mollie Neale Memorial Award and the Horace Keats Memorial Award. In 2005 Paul pursued his love of art song and in particular German Lied at the Detmold Hochschule für Musik in Germany, where his studies involved the great Lieder singers Thomas Quasthoff and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. During a study tour in London Paul was able to have lessons with the pianists Julius Drake and Michael Dussek. Already an experienced recitalist, Paul has performed extensively in Sydney and regional New South Wales as well as New Zealand, working with international artists such as Wanda Wilkomirska, Michael Halliwell and Opera Australia soloists Shu Chen Yu and Judd Arthur. Paul has made several appearances on television and radio.
Program
Semifinal
Schubert
Frühlingstraum
from Die Winterreise
Der Schiffer
Fauré
Clair de lune
Berg
Regan
Erster Verlust
Ich liebe dich
Glanville-Hicks
Come sleep
Final
Brahms
Der Gang zum Liebchen
Meine Liebe ist grün
Wie bist du, meine Königin
Salamander
Duparc
Phidylé
Le manoir de Rosemonde
Wolf
Gesegnet sei
Und willst du deinen Liebsten sterben sehen
from Italienisches Liederbuch
Vaughan Williams
Silent noon
from The House of Life
Derek Welton
Derek Welton holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Melbourne, majoring in German and Linguistics. Derek has performed a number of roles in Mozart’s operas: Papageno in The Magic Flute, Guglielmo in Cosi Fan Tutte, and Masetto in Don Giovanni, for the Melbourne Opera Company, and Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro for In Good Company (Melbourne). In March 2006 Derek made his New Zealand and international début in the title role in Salieri’s Falstaff for Opera Otago. Derek’s concert repertoire spans composers from Bach to Sir John Taverner. Baritone/bass solo performances include Bach’s Magnificat, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and the title role in Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Upcoming engagements include the role of Jesus both in Bach’s St Matthew Passion and the Australian première of Heinrich von Herzogenberg’s Die Passion, and bass solos in Stainer’s The Crucifixion and Handel’s Messiah. In 2005 Derek won a full scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, in the final of the Australian Singing Competition. He was runner-up in the Herald Sun Aria, and won the Geelong Aria and the 2005 Booroondara Eisteddfod Vocal Championship.
Calvin Bowman
Calvin Bowman graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University, assisted by a Fulbright scholarship, the inaugural Anthony Joseph Pratt award for the Visual and Performing Arts. His principal teachers include John O’Donnell and Thomas Murray, organ; Donald Thornton, piano; Davitt Moroney, harpsichord; and Graeme Koehne and Ezra Laderman, composition. In 1995 Calvin presented the complete Bach organ works to critical acclaim. He has featured regularly on ABC Classic FM, and in 2000 presented a TV broadcast for the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death. In 2001 he was organist in the première of a work for organ, didgeridoo and narrator written by Philip Glass for the re-opening of the Melbourne Town Hall organ. Calvin’s art songs have been lauded by Barbara Bonney as “very beautiful and well written”. He is a laureate of the 2005 Ned Rorem Award for Song Composition and the 2005 Diana Barnhart American Song Competition, and has received numerous commissions. His work will shortly be published by Alfred Lengnick and Company, Great Britain. In 2006 Calvin will be performing Graeme Koehne’s Capriccio for piano and strings with Australia Pro Arte to mark Koehne’s fiftieth birthday. He will also act as organist and producer for a disc of music by Philip Glass for the composer’s own label, Orange Mountain Music.
Program
Semifinal
Strauss
Zueignung Op 10 No 1
Schubert
Der Musensohn
Butterworth
Look not in my eyes
Think no more, lad
Bowman
Now touch the air softly
Schubert
Ständchen
Final
Beethoven
Adelaide Op 46
Bowman
Fresh fields
Butterworth
Loveliest of trees
The lads in their hundreds
Is my team ploughing?
Bowman
Words by the water
Strauss
Die Nacht Op 10 No 3
Allerseelen Op 10 No 8
Schubert
Litanei auf das Fest Allerseelen
Judith Dodsworth
Graduating with distinction from the Canberra School of Music, soprano Judith Dodsworth studied in London and Vienna, working with the Arnold Schönberg Chor, Concentus Vocalis Wien and NeuOper Wien. Returning to Australia, she completed a Master’s degree in performance at the University of Melbourne where she studied with Merlyn Quaife. Recent operatic roles include the title role and Mercedes in OzOpera’s Carmen, the lead soprano role in Opiume, a new chamber opera for the Singapore and Hong Kong Art Festivals, and the Wife in the Australian première of Michael Nyman’s The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, for Operalive. Oratorio performances include Handel’s Messiah, the Requiems of Mozart and Fauré, and Haydn’s Nelson Mass. Première performances of Australian works include Lindsay Brunsdon: I fell into a Cauldron, A Season in Hell, Nirmali Fenn: Some Words, Johanna Selleck: Becoming, Larry Sitsky: Bone of my Bones, and Calvin Bowman’s song cycles Now Touch the Air Softly and Beyond the Grass Tree Spears. Forthcoming engagements include Carmen with OzOpera, Anastasio in Vivaldi’s Giustino for Lyric Opera of Melbourne, Bach’s Cantata 51 Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, and chamber music with Miscellany Ensemble.
Calvin Bowman
Calvin Bowman graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University, assisted by a Fulbright scholarship, the inaugural Anthony Joseph Pratt award for the Visual and Performing Arts. His principal teachers include John O’Donnell and Thomas Murray, organ; Donald Thornton, piano; Davitt Moroney, harpsichord; and Graeme Koehne and Ezra Laderman, composition. In 1995 Calvin presented the complete Bach organ works to critical acclaim. He has featured regularly on ABC Classic FM, and in 2000 presented a TV broadcast for the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death. In 2001 he was organist in the première of a work for organ, didgeridoo and narrator written by Philip Glass for the re-opening of the Melbourne Town Hall organ. Calvin’s art songs have been lauded by Barbara Bonney as “very beautiful and well written”. He is a laureate of the 2005 Ned Rorem Award for Song Composition and the 2005 Diana Barnhart American Song Competition, and has received numerous commissions. His work will shortly be published by Alfred Lengnick and Company, Great Britain. In 2006 Calvin will be performing Graeme Koehne’s Capriccio for piano and strings with Australia Pro Arte to mark Koehne’s fiftieth birthday. He will also act as organist and producer for a disc of music by Philip Glass for the composer’s own label, Orange Mountain Music.
Program
Semifinal
Schubert
Die Forelle
Duparc
Phidylé
Barber
Nuvoletta
Bowman
The poem and the bird
Final
Berg
Nacht
Schilflied
Die Nachtigall
Traumgekrönt
from Sieben Frühe Lieder
Duparc
L’invitation au voyage
Chanson triste
Bowman
Structure of song
Lily in autumn
Now touch the air softly
Tulip
Words by the water
The arrow
from Now Touch the Air Softly