The Sydney Conservatorium of Music (formerly the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music and sometimes known as ‘The Con’) is one of the oldest and most prestigious music schools in Australia. Located adjacent to the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens, the Conservatorium incorporates a faculty of the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

, the community-based Conservatorium Open Academy and the Conservatorium High School

Conservatorium High School

The Conservatorium High School , is a publicly funded, co-educational, creative and performing arts secondary day school specialising in music. It is owned and run by the New South Wales Department of Education and Training , and prepares students for the Higher School Certificate in their final...

.

The Greenway Building

Originally commissioned in 1815 as the stables for the proposed Government House of New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, the oldest Conservatorium building was designed by the convict architect, Francis Greenway

Francis Greenway

-References:* *...

. A gothic structure with turrets, the building was described as a "palace for horses" and is a portrayal of the romantic vision of Governor Lachlan Macquarie

Lachlan Macquarie

Major-General Lachlan Macquarie CB , was a British military officer and colonial administrator. He served as the last autocratic Governor of New South Wales, Australia from 1810 to 1821 and had a leading role in the social, economic and architectural development of the colony...

 and the British architectural trends of the time. The stables, located close to picturesque Sydney Harbour

Port Jackson

Port Jackson, containing Sydney Harbour, is the natural harbour of Sydney, Australia. It is known for its beauty, and in particular, as the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge...

, reflect the building techniques and the range of materials and skills employed during the early settlement era.

Origins of the Conservatorium

In 1915 the NSW Government under William Holman

William Holman

William Arthur Holman was an Australian Labor Party Premier of New South Wales, Australia, who split with the party on the conscription issue in 1916 during World War I, and immediately became Premier of a conservative Nationalist Party Government.-Early life:Holman was born in St Pancras, London,...

 allocated £22,000 to the redevelopment of the stables into a music school. The NSW State Conservatorium of Music opened on 6 March 1916 under the directorship of the Belgian conductor and violinist Henri Verbrugghen

Henri Verbrugghen

Henri Verbrugghen was a Belgian musician, who directed orchestras in England, Scotland, Australia and the United States....

, who was the only salaried staff member. The institution's stated aims of "providing tuition of a standard at least equal to that of the leading European Conservatoriums" and to "protect amateurs against the frequent waste of time and money arising from unsystematic tuition". The reference to European standards and the appointment of a European director was not uncontroversial at the time, but criticism soon subsided. By all accounts, Verbrugghen was hugely energetic: Joseph Post

Joseph Post

Joseph Mozart Post OBE was an Australian conductor and music administrator. He made an unrivalled contribution to the development of opera-conducting in Australia and was, in Roger Covell's words, the 'first Australian-born musician to excel in this genre'...

, later himself to be director, described him as "a regular dynamo, and the sort of man of whom you had to take notice the moment he entered the room". Enrolments in the first year were healthy with 320 "single-study" students and a small contingent of full-time students, the first diploma graduations occurring four years later. A specialist high school, the Conservatorium High School

Conservatorium High School

The Conservatorium High School , is a publicly funded, co-educational, creative and performing arts secondary day school specialising in music. It is owned and run by the New South Wales Department of Education and Training , and prepares students for the Higher School Certificate in their final...

 was established in 1918, establishing a model for music education across the secondary, tertiary, and community sectors which has survived to this day.

Verbrugghen's impact was incisive but briefer than had been hoped. When he put a request to the NSW Government that he be paid separate salaries for his artistic work as conductor of the orchestra (by then the NSW State Orchestra) and educational work as Director of the Conservatorium, the Government withdrew its subsidies for both the orchestra and the string quartet that Verbrugghen had installed. He resigned in 1921 after taking the Conservatorium Orchestra to Melbourne and to New Zealand.

The Conservatorium was home to Australia's first full-time orchestra, composed of both professional musicians and Conservatorium students. The orchestra remained Sydney's main orchestra for much of the 1920s, accompanying many artists brought to Australia by producer J. C. Williamson

J. C. Williamson

James Cassius Williamson was an American actor and later Australia's foremost theatrical manager, founding J. C. Williamson Ltd....

, including the legendary violinist Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...

, who donated money to the Conservatorium library for orchestral parts. However, during the later part of the stewardship of Verbrugghen's successor, Dr W. Arundel Orchard

W. Arundel Orchard

William Arundel Orchard OBE FRCM was a British-born Australian organist, pianist, composer, conductor and music educator....

 (Director 1923–34), there were tensions with another emerging professional body, the "ABC Symphony Orchestra", later to become the Sydney Symphony Orchestra

Sydney Symphony Orchestra

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...

, driven by the young, ambitious and energetic Bernard Heinze

Bernard Heinze

Sir Bernard Thomas Heinze, AC was an Australian Professor of Music, conductor, and Director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music....

, Director-General of Music for the Federal Government's new Australian Broadcasting Commission

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

.

In 1935, under Edgar Bainton

Edgar Bainton

Edgar Leslie Bainton was a British composer, most celebrated for his church music. Perhaps his most famous piece is the liturgical anthem And I saw a new heaven, but during recent years Bainton's other musical works - neglected for decades - have been increasingly often heard in the concert...

 (Director 1934–48), the Conservatorium Opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 School was founded, later performing works such as Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's Falstaff

Falstaff (opera)

Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...

and Othello

Othello

The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...

, Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...

and Die Walküre

Die Walküre

Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...

, and Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

's Pelléas et Mélisande

Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)

Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...

, among others. Under Sir Eugene Goossens

Eugène Aynsley Goossens

Sir Eugene Aynsley Goossens was an English conductor and composer.-Biography:He was born in Camden Town, London, the son of the Belgian conductor and violinist Eugène Goossens and the grandson of the conductor Eugène Goossens...

 (Director 1948–55), opera at the Conservatorium made a major contribution to what researcher Roger Covell

Roger Covell

Roger David Covell AM is an eminent Australian musicologist, critic and author. He is Professor Emeritus in the School of English, Media and Performing Arts at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, and continues to contribute articles and reviews to the Sydney Morning Herald, where he...

 has described as " the most seminal years in the history of locally produced opera...". Although the most prominent musician to have held the post of Director, Goossens' tenure was not without controversy. Apart from the international scandal surrounding his departure in 1956, Goossens was said during his directorship to have channelled the best players in the Conservatorium Orchestra into the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (of which he was concurrently Chief Conductor), leaving only a student group for the Conservatorium. He disbanded the choir and several chamber ensembles and, some claimed, tended to ignore administrative matters. Richard Bonynge

Richard Bonynge

Richard Alan Bonynge, AO, CBE is an Australian conductor and pianist.Bonynge was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Boys High School before studying piano at the Royal College of Music in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for...

, however, who graduated in 1950, felt that it was Goossens who turned the Conservatorium into a world-class institution, lifting standards and exposing students to sophisticated 20th-century scores (particularly those of Debussy and Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

).

Expansion and reforms

Under the direction of Rex Hobcroft (1972–82), the Conservatorium adopted the modern educational profile recognised today. Hobcroft’s vision of a "Music University" was realised, in which specialised musical disciplines including both classical and jazz performance

Performance

A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...

, music education

Music education

Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. It touches on all domains of learning, including the psychomotor domain , the cognitive domain , and, in particular and significant ways,the affective domain, including music appreciation and sensitivity...

, composition

Musical composition

Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

 and musicology

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

 enriched each other.

In 1990, as part of the Dawkins Reforms, the Conservatorium amalgamated with the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

, and was renamed the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

A 1994 review of the Sydney Conservatorium by the University of Sydney resulted in a recommendation 'That negotiations with the NSW State Government about permanent suitable accommodation for the Conservatorium be pursued as a matter of urgency'

As in 1916, a wide range of sites were considered, many of them controversial. In May 1997, 180 years after Governor Macquarie laid the foundation stone for the Greenway Building, State Premier Bob Carr

Bob Carr

Robert John "Bob" Carr , Australian statesman, was Premier of New South Wales from 4 April 1995 to 3 August 2005. He holds the record for the longest continuous service as premier of NSW...

 announced a major upgrade of the Conservatorium, with the ultimate goal of creating a music education facility equal to or better than anything in the world. A team was assembled to work to that brief, resulting in a complex collaboration between various government departments (notably the Department of Education and Training and the Department of Public Works and Services), the Government Architect, US-based acoustic consultants Kirkegaard Associates

Kirkegaard Associates

Kirkegaard Associates is an American acoustics design firm based in Chicago, Illinois, with an office in Boulder Colorado. As of 2010, the company is headed by Lawrence Kirkegaard and employs 29 professionals in architecture, acoustics, music recording, mechanical and audio engineering, musical and...

, Daryl Jackson Robin Dyke Architects, the key users represented by the Principal and Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and the Principal of the Conservatorium High School, the Royal Botanic Gardens

Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney

The Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, Australia, are the most central of the three major botanical gardens open to the public in Sydney....

 and Domain Trust

The Domain, Sydney

The Domain is 34 hectares of open space in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the eastern edge of the Sydney central business district, near Woolloomooloo. The Domain adjoins the Royal Botanic Gardens and is managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens Trust, a division of the New South...

 and many others.

The building process saw the temporary relocation of the Conservatorium’s performance activities, and the Conservatorium High School to the Australian Technology Park

Australian Technology Park

The Australian Technology Park is a business and technology centre in Eveleigh, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia...

 from 1998–2001. With the Conservatorium's Composition, Music Education and Musicology Units housed in an office building in Pitt Street, the challenges (which had existed since the 1970s) of a split campus connected only by a railway line from Redfern to Wynyard became acute.

By the time of the relocation, the historic Greenway building, Governor Macquarie's stables, had housed music students for longer than it had housed horses. Nevertheless heritage was a sensitive issue. The redevelopment has restored Greenway's historic castellated building, removing newer additions to discreetly complement, enhance and enlarge the public green space of the Royal Botanic Gardens. For the city of Sydney it makes a major step towards the completion of the vision first enunciated by the then Conservatorium Director Eugene Goossens in 1947 when he lobbied Joe Cahill

Joseph Cahill

John Joseph Cahill was Premier of New South Wales in Australia from 1952 to 1959. He is best remembered as the Premier who approved construction on the Sydney Opera House, and for his work increasing the authority of local government in the state.-Early years:Joe Cahill, as he was popularly known,...

 (Minister for Local Government, later Premier) for an Opera House on Bennelong Point to create a music precinct in the lower end of Macquarie Street. For the Conservatorium, it provides facilities of outstanding acoustic and architectural quality in which to serve the music and wider communities, and to educate future generations of performers, musicologists, composers and music educators.

Centenary commissions

To mark the centenary of the Conservatorium in 2015, it is commissioning 101 new works, the spread designed to represent those who have shaped music over the past 100 years. The first work in the series was John Corigliano

John Corigliano

John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...

's Mr Tambourine Man, based on the poetry of Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, which was presented on 11 September 2009.

Heads of the Conservatorium

Professor Kim Walker

Kim Walker (bassoonist)

Kim Walker is a bassoonist of Scottish/American origins. She has performed throughout Europe and the US, and in China, and been prominent at leading Music Festivals such as Ravinia, Wolf Trap, Marlboro, Mostly Mozart in the US, Prades, Luzern, Korsholm, Schleswig-Holstein and London Proms in Europe...

 has been Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium since 2004. The past directors, principals and deans were:

• Henri Verbrugghen
  Henri Verbrugghen
  Henri Verbrugghen was a Belgian musician, who directed orchestras in England, Scotland, Australia and the United States....
  
   (Director 1916–21)
• W. Arundel Orchard
  W. Arundel Orchard
  William Arundel Orchard OBE FRCM was a British-born Australian organist, pianist, composer, conductor and music educator....
  
   (Director 1923–34)
• Edgar Bainton
  Edgar Bainton
  Edgar Leslie Bainton was a British composer, most celebrated for his church music. Perhaps his most famous piece is the liturgical anthem And I saw a new heaven, but during recent years Bainton's other musical works - neglected for decades - have been increasingly often heard in the concert...
  
   (Director 1934–48)
• Sir Eugene Goossens
  Eugène Aynsley Goossens
  Sir Eugene Aynsley Goossens was an English conductor and composer.-Biography:He was born in Camden Town, London, the son of the Belgian conductor and violinist Eugène Goossens and the grandson of the conductor Eugène Goossens...
  
   (Director 1948–55)
• Sir Bernard Heinze
  Bernard Heinze
  Sir Bernard Thomas Heinze, AC was an Australian Professor of Music, conductor, and Director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music....
  
   (Director 1957–66)
• Joseph Post
  Joseph Post
  Joseph Mozart Post OBE was an Australian conductor and music administrator. He made an unrivalled contribution to the development of opera-conducting in Australia and was, in Roger Covell's words, the 'first Australian-born musician to excel in this genre'...
  
   (Director 1966–71)
• Rex Hobcroft (Director 1972–82)
• John Painter (Director 1982–85)
• John Hopkins
  John Hopkins (conductor)
  John Hopkins OBE is a Yorkshire-born, British conductor and administrator. Hopkins moved to New Zealand in 1957 and to Australia in 1963. He conducted the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in 1987 in one of New Zealand's first Orchestral Composers' Reading Workshops...
  
   (Director 1986–91)
• Ronald Smart (Principal 1992–94)
• Ros Pesman (acting Principal 1994–95)
• Sharman Pretty (Principal and Dean 1995–2003)

Notable alumni

• Richard Bonynge
  Richard Bonynge
  Richard Alan Bonynge, AO, CBE is an Australian conductor and pianist.Bonynge was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Boys High School before studying piano at the Royal College of Music in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for...
  
  , conductor
• Alexander Briger
  Alexander Briger
  Alexander Briger is an Australian classical conductor. He is the nephew of the conductor Sir Charles Mackerras, and both are descended from the composer Isaac Nathan.-Biography:...
  
  , conductor
• Tony Buck
  Tony Buck
  Tony Buck is a drummer and percussionist. He graduated from the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music , becoming involved in the Australian jazz scene....
  
  , member of band The Necks
  The Necks
  The Necks are an experimental jazz trio from Sydney, Australia, comprising Chris Abrahams on piano and Hammond organ, Tony Buck on drums, percussion and electric guitar and Lloyd Swanton on bass guitar and double bass...
  
  
• Romola Costantino
  Romola Costantino
  Romola Helen Louise Costantino OBE was a noted Australian pianist, accompanist and teacher, who also worked as a music, film and theatre critic....
  
  , piano
• Iva Davies
  Iva Davies
  Iva Davies , is the frontman for Australian electro/new wave/rock band Icehouse.-Biography:...
  
  , frontman of band Icehouse
  Icehouse (band)
  Icehouse is an Australian rock band, formed as Flowers in 1977 in Sydney. Initially known in Australia for their pub rock style, they later achieved mainstream success playing new wave and synthpop style music and attained Top Ten singles chart success in both Europe and the U.S...
  
  
• Tania Davis
  Tania Davis
  Tania Davis is the first violinist of the British/Australian classical crossover string quartet Bond. Originally the violist of the quartet, she became the first violinist of the group in 2008 when its original first violinist Haylie Ecker left the group. Elspeth Hanson subsequently joined the...
  
  , member of band Bond
  Bond (band)
  Bond is an Australian/British string quartet that specialises in classical crossover music...
  
  
• Bryan Fairfax
  Bryan Fairfax
  Bryan Fairfax is a retired Australian conductor based in the United Kingdom, who is known for his championing of little known or neglected works....
  
  , conductor
• Richard Farrell
  Richard Farrell
  Richard Farrell was a gifted New Zealand classical pianist who achieved almost legendary status, but whose flourishing career was cut short in a road accident at the age of 31...
  
  , piano
• Julian Hamilton
  Julian Hamilton
  Julian Thomas Hamilton is a singer, song-writer and keyboardist, who, with bandmate Kim Moyes, makes up successful Sydney electronica duo, The Presets.-Biography:...
  
  , band member of The Presets
  The Presets
  The Presets are an Australian electronic duo formed in 2003, consisting of Julian Hamilton on vocals and keyboards, and Kim Moyes on drums and keyboards. They released their debut album Beams in 2005 to positive critical response. Their 2008 release Apocalypso debuted at number-one on the ARIA...
  
  , The Dissociatives
  The Dissociatives
  The Dissociatives are an Australian band consisting of Daniel Johns of Silverchair, Australian dance producer DJ Paul Mac, and touring members Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes from Sydney electronic duo "The Presets"...
  
   and Silverchair
  Silverchair
  Silverchair were an Australian rock band, which formed in 1992 as Innocent Criminals in Merewether, Newcastle with the line-up of Ben Gillies on drums, Chris Joannou on bass guitar and Daniel Johns on vocals and guitars. The group got their big break in mid-1994 when they won a national demo...
  
  
• Dulcie Holland
  Dulcie Holland
  Dulcie Sybil Holland AM was an Australian composer and music educator. Best known for her contributions to music education through her energetic involvement with the Australian Music Examinations Board, Holland has in recent decades gained greater recognition as a composer...
  
  , piano and composition
• Carmel Kaine
  Carmel Kaine
  Carmel Kaine is an Australian classical violinist.She was born in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales and studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium, graduating at the age of seventeen with the prize for the most outstanding student. As a 19-year old, Kaine spent a year as a member of the South...
  
  , violin
• Constantine Koukias
  Constantine Koukias
  Constantine Koukias is a Greek-Australian composer and flautist.He is the co-founder and Artistic Director of IHOS Music Theatre and Opera, based in Hobart, Tasmania. He is well known for his innovative work in contemporary opera and other forms...
  
  , composition
• Geoffrey Lancaster
  Geoffrey Lancaster
  Geoffrey Lancaster AM is an Australian classical pianist and conductor. Born in Sydney, he was raised in Dubbo, New South Wales before moving to Canberra. He attended the Canberra School of Music where he studied piano with Larry Sitsky...
  
  , fortepiano
• Indra Lesmana
  Indra Lesmana
  Indra Lesmana is an Indonesian jazz pianist.- Background :He was introduced to jazz music by his father, Jack Lesmana, who is also a jazz musician. His musical career with keyboards instrument started at age 10...
  
  , Indonesian
  Indonesia
  Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
  
   Jazz musician
• Cho-Liang Lin
  Cho-Liang Lin
  Cho-Liang Lin , born in Hsinchu, Taiwan, is a Taiwanese American violinist who is renowned for his appearances as a soloist with major orchestras. "Musical America" named him its "Instrumentalist of the Year" in 2000...
  
  , violin
• Stephanie McCallum
  Stephanie McCallum
  Stephanie McCallum is a classical pianist. She has recorded works of Erik Satie, Ludwig van Beethoven, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Carl Maria von Weber, Albéric Magnard, Pierre Boulez, and Iannis Xenakis among others.-Life:Stephanie McCallum studied with Alexander...
  
  , piano
• Jade MacRae
  Jade MacRae
  Jade MacRae is an Australian R&B/Soul singer and the daughter of two professional New Zealand musicians living in the UK. Her debut single "You Make Me Weak" debuted in the top 50 of the Australian singles charts in November 2004...
  
  , voice
• Richard Meale
  Richard Meale
  Richard Graham Meale, AM, MBE was an Australian composer of instrumental works and operas.-Biography:Meale was born in Sydney and studied piano with Winifred Burston at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, as well as clarinet, harp, music history and theory, before studying at the University of...
  
  , composition
• Sam Moran
  Sam Moran
  Sam Moran is an Australian entertainer best known for being a member of the children's band The Wiggles. He was born in Sydney and raised in Wagga Wagga.-Career:...
  
  , member of The Wiggles
  The Wiggles
  The Wiggles are a children's group formed in Sydney, Australia in 1991. Their original members were Anthony Field, Phillip Wilcher, Murray Cook, Greg Page, and Jeff Fatt. Wilcher left the group after their first album...
  
  
• James Morrison
  James Morrison (musician)
  James Morrison AM is an Australian jazz musician who plays numerous instruments, but is best known for his trumpet playing...
  
  , trumpeter
• Kim Moyes
  Kim Moyes
  Kimberley "Kim" Isaac Moyes or K.I.M. is half of a Sydney-based electronica duo, The Presets with Julian Hamilton. Moyes provides keyboard and drums, as well as production . His involvement with The Presets has resulted in a total of six ARIA Music Awards...
  
  , band member of The Presets
  The Presets
  The Presets are an Australian electronic duo formed in 2003, consisting of Julian Hamilton on vocals and keyboards, and Kim Moyes on drums and keyboards. They released their debut album Beams in 2005 to positive critical response. Their 2008 release Apocalypso debuted at number-one on the ARIA...
  
  , The Dissociatives
  The Dissociatives
  The Dissociatives are an Australian band consisting of Daniel Johns of Silverchair, Australian dance producer DJ Paul Mac, and touring members Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes from Sydney electronic duo "The Presets"...
  
   and Silverchair
  Silverchair
  Silverchair were an Australian rock band, which formed in 1992 as Innocent Criminals in Merewether, Newcastle with the line-up of Ben Gillies on drums, Chris Joannou on bass guitar and Daniel Johns on vocals and guitars. The group got their big break in mid-1994 when they won a national demo...
  
  
• Geoffrey Parsons
  Geoffrey Parsons (pianist)
  Geoffrey Penwill Parsons AO OBE was an Australian pianist, most particularly notable as an accompanist to singers and instrumentalists...
  
  , piano
• Deborah Riedel
  Deborah Riedel
  Deborah Riedel was an Australian operatic soprano. Hers is generally regarded as one of the greatest voices ever produced in Australia. She died of cancer at the height of her career, at the age of 50....
  
  , voice
• Kathryn Selby
  Kathryn Selby
  Kathryn Selby is an Australian classical pianist. She is often known as Kathy Selby.She grew up in Sydney. She entered the Sydney Conservatorium of Music at the age of seven. She followed this with study with Béla Síki at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1976 she was awarded a...
  
  , piano
• Larry Sitsky
  Larry Sitsky
  Lazar Sitsky AM, usually referred to as Larry Sitsky, born 10 September 1934, is an Australian composer, pianist, and music educator and scholar...
  
  , composition and piano
• Rai Thistlethwayte
  Rai Thistlethwayte
  Rai Thistlethwayte is an Australian rock and jazz musician and songwriter. Rai is an accomplished pianist, guitarist, and vocalist. He is most widely known as the lead singer and primary songwriter in the Australian rock pop band Thirsty Merc...
  
  , lead singer of Thirsty Merc
  Thirsty Merc
  Thirsty Merc are an Australian pop rock band formed in 2002 in Sydney, Australia. The band consists of Rai Thistlethwayte , Phil Stack , Karl Robertson , and Matt Smith ....
  
  
• Katia Tiutiunnik
  Katia Tiutiunnik
  Katia Tiutiunnik is an Australian violist, scholar and composer. She is of Russian, Ukrainian and Irish descent.-Education:...
  
  , composer
• Gerard Willems
  Gerard Willems
  Gerard Willems is a Dutch-born Australian classical pianist and teacher. He was the first Dutch and first Australian pianist to record the complete series of 32 piano sonatas, 5 piano concertos and the Diabelli Variations by Ludwig van Beethoven, and is the only pianist to do so using a...
  
  , piano
• Malcolm Williamson
  Malcolm Williamson
  Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson AO , CBE was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death.-Biography:...
  
  , composition and piano
• Simone Young
  Simone Young
  Simone Margaret Young AM is an Australian conductor. She is music director of the Hamburg Philharmonic and general manager of the Hamburg State Opera...
  
  , conductor

Notable teachers

• Winifred Burston
  Winifred Burston
  Winifred Charlotte Hillier Crosse Burston was an Australian pianist and teacher.She was born near Caboolture, Queensland, of English-born parents, raised in Brisbane, and taught by her mother, an accomplished pianist. She studied first in Berlin from 1908, under Theodore Bohlmann...
  
  
• Edwin Carr
  Edwin Carr (composer)
  Edwin Carr was a composer of classical music from New Zealand.-Biography:Edwin Carr was born in Auckland and was educated at Otago Boys' High School from 1940 to 1943. He studied music at Otago University from 1944-5 and Auckland University College from 1946, then left with his degree unfinished...
  
  
• Richard Goldner
  Richard Goldner
  Richard Goldner was a Romanian-born, Viennese-trained Australian violist, pedagogue and inventor. He founded Musica Viva Australia in 1945, which became the world's largest entrepreneurial chamber music organisation. The Goldner String Quartet was named in his memory.-Biography:Richard Goldner...
  
  , viola
• Isador Goodman
  Isador Goodman
  Isador Goodman AM was a South African-Australian Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. He became a household name in Australia in the 1930s-1970s, taught at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music for 50 years, introduced many Australians to classical music, and contributed hugely to music...
  
  
• Alexa Still
  Alexa Still
  Alexa Still is a New Zealand born flutist currently based in Oberlin, Ohio, where she teaches at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.Still studied in the US with Samuel Baron at SUNY Stony Brook and with Thomas Nyfenger...
  
  , flute
• Alexander Sverjensky
  Alexander Sverjensky
  Alexander Borisovich Sverjensky was a Russian-born Australian pianist and teacher....
  
  
• Mark Walton
  Mark Walton
  Mark Walton is a New Zealand born clarinettist, saxophonist, composer, arranger, and musical educator.After leaving New Zealand to study clarinet in New York and London and has been resident in Sydney, Australia, from 1985 onwards...
  
  
• Uzi Wiesel
• Wanda Wiłkomirska
• Gerard Willems
  Gerard Willems
  Gerard Willems is a Dutch-born Australian classical pianist and teacher. He was the first Dutch and first Australian pianist to record the complete series of 32 piano sonatas, 5 piano concertos and the Diabelli Variations by Ludwig van Beethoven, and is the only pianist to do so using a...
  
  
• Natalia Sheludiakova
  Natalia Sheludiakova
  Natalia Sheludiakova is a lecturer and concert performer, currently teaching at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.-Biography:Natalia Sheludiakova studied piano in Moscow with Professor Oleg Boshniakovich at the Gnessin Institute...
  
  

External links

• Sydney Conservatorium of Music
• Daryl Jackson Robin Dyke