Markiyan Melnychenko, Josephine Vains, Peter de Jager, Stewart Kelly
Biographie Markiyan Melnychenko, Josephine Vains, Peter de Jager, Stewart Kelly
Markiyan Melnychenko CF
Ukrainian-Australian violinist Markiyan Melnychenko CF has been described as “an artist of patrician sensibility, spectacular technique”, and “possessing an extraordinary combination of bravura, brains and elegance”. He has served as Lecturer in Violin at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and Principal 1st Violin with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra.
Awarded the Dr Iain C. Medgett Churchill Fellowship in 2019, he has performed in 17 countries including solo performances in New York (Alice Tully Hall), Washington DC (Kennedy Centre), and has made a number of solo appearances with orchestras including performances with the Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra, Kobe City Chamber Orchestra, Collegium Musicum, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Corpus Medicorum and Orchestra Victoria. He has been broadcast on ABC Classic FM, 3MBS FM and Radio NZ, and has commercially released recordings on the Tall Poppies (2019) and Naxos (2020) labels.
In 2013 he was selected to perform in a quartet at the US Capitol for the Inaugural Luncheon at Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration. He is a multiple 1st prize winner in national and international competitions including the Melbourne Recital Centre's National “Great Romantics” competition and the Oleh Krysa International Violin Competition in Ukraine. He was also awarded the 'Australian Development Prize' from the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in 2013.
Markiyan obtained his Bachelor and Masters of Music at the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of Professor of Violin – Oleh Krysa. He was additionally awarded Eastman's Performer's certificate and the highly prestigious Artist Certificate, being the first violinist to receive this award in over 50 years. Additional studies have been at the Australian National Academy of Music with Alice Waten and William Hennessy, and also with Cyrus Forough.
Peter de Jager
holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition from the University of Melbourne. He undertook both the Young Academy program and the Advanced Performance program at the Australian National Academy of Music and is now on the faculty as an Associate Artist. His piano teachers have included Stephen McIntyre, Rita Reichman and Nehama Patkin, his composition teachers Stuart Greenbaum and Elliott Gyger. He is equally a pianist, harpsichordist and composer.
Peter attended the Lucerne Festival Academy, directed by Pierre Boulez, in 2009, 2010 and 2013. His performances there included Messiaen’s Turangalila-Symphonie under David Robertson. He attended the Bang on a Can Summer Institute (Massachusetts) in 2011. He has recorded a disc of French Oboe Sonatas with
Ben Opie.
As a composer, he has been commissioned by Astra, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and Speak Percussion. He performs cabaret and co-wrote Reception: The Musical with actor/writer Bethany Simons, which was nominated for a Green Room Award. His Freedman Fellowship will fund a European recital tour highlighting a newly-commissioned piano sonata by Chris Dench, and creating four mini documentaries on the Sonata and three other piano works.
Stewart Kelly
enjoys a diverse career as entrepreneur, pianist, teacher and broadcaster.
He is the founder and artistic director of Music by the Springs, which since 2018 has quickly become regarded as one of Australia’s finest chamber music festivals. In the same year he opened House of Pianos which is a hub for piano sales, music lessons and concerts and masterclasses.
As a performer, he works as a soloist and collaborator with many of Australia’s leading instrumentalists and singers at leading concert venues and festivals around the country. He has performed in many leading Australian venues, at Festivals in Tasmania, Hepburn Springs, Mackay, Townsville, Brisbane and Coramba and internationally in New Zealand, China, Italy and the USA.
His 2022 season includes directing the first Renaissance Tours Festival of Chamber Music in April, the fifth Music by the Springs, recitals at Tempo Rubato, a seventh year of Stewart Kelly and Friends at the Melbourne Recital Centre, and the Mackay Chamber Music Festival.
As a teacher and associate artist, Stewart is a casual staff member at the Melbourne Conservatorium at Melbourne University and part-time faculty at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School.
Stewart’s playing has also been broadcast widely, recording for the ABC with Stefanie Farrands, and numerous concert broadcasts (including live-to-air recitals) for 4MBS, ABC Classic and 3MBS. He features on a Melba records world premiere recording of an arrangement of Mahler’s second symphony for two pianos eight hands. This release was critically acclaimed worldwide and was named a ‘Hidden gem’ by the Guardian in London.
Stewart is a graduate of the Queensland University of Technology, the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University and the Australian National Academy of Music. He holds a Bachelor of Music with distinction and a Master of Music Studies, obtained while studying under the principal guidance of Gillian Wills, Diane Selmon, Stephen Emmerson and Timothy Young. In 2014 he was a Fellow of the Australian National Academy of Music, Australia’s most prestigious music training institution.
As a broadcaster, Stewart presents the program “Melbourne in Concert” on the 3MBS network in Melbourne. The program airs at 6pm on Sundays and can be streamed online or listened to on-demand.
Josephine Vains
is a versatile and engaging performer, heard regularly in concert around Australia and overseas as a cellist and chamber musician.
She has worked with myriad artists on diverse projects including piano trio / quartet / quintet, string quartet, opera, baroque ensembles, contemporary and electronic music, and Argentine tango music.
Josephine is a founding member of Firebird Trio, currently presenting innovative and engaging programs around Australia. Equally at home on modern and period instruments, Josephine performs and records regularly with other ensembles including Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Kammermusik, Accademia Arcadia, Ludovico’s Band, Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra, Elysium Ensemble and Melbourne Baroque Orchestra.
In Australia she has performed for Australian Digital Concert Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre, Musica Viva, the Sydney and Melbourne Arts Festivals, Noosa Long Weekend, Castlemaine and Port Fairy Festivals, Woodend Winter Arts and Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields Festivals. International performances include at the Musicfest Vancouver, the Hannover Brahms and Schumann Festivals, White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg and more recently at the Longyou Caves Festival (China) and Akaroa Chamber Music Festival (NZ).
Josephine features on a number of albums including; Royal Children's Hospital HUSH, ABC Classics, Resonus Classics, Tall Poppies, and has been reviewed in GRAMOPHON Magazine. In 2020 she was the winner of the Moreland Award for Arts and Culture for her contribution to community during Covid-19 lockdown with a series of Letterbox Concerts. She is a Laureate of MICMC 1999 with Trio 303, and was the winner of the inaugural National Chamber Music Competition. She has Honours and Masters degrees in modern and historical performance from Melbourne, Germany and Switzerland.
She performs on a Thomas Kennedy Cello, 1850 (London) and a Thomas Dodd Cello, (1800) London.
