Melbourne-born flautist Kim Falconer completed her Bachelor of Music degree with honours at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, before studying with Virginia Taylor at the Australian National Academy of Music. She holds her Licentiate Diploma with Distinction, for which she was awarded the Leslie Barklamb Flute Award. In 2015, Kim won first prize in the Australian Flute Festival Open Competition, and was also awarded the prize for Best Performance of the Set Work.

Kim has worked with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Victorian Opera, the Australian Conservatoire of Ballet Orchestra and the Melbourne Bach Orchestra. She will be performing with the Australian Youth Orchestra as principal flute in 2017.

2017 is Joshua Oates’ second year as an Oboe Fellow in the SSO Fellowship program. Joshua attended Marryatville High School in Adelaide where he began oboe lessons while part of the special interest music program. Continuing his oboe studies at the Elder Conservatorium of Music with Celia Craig, he won a Helpmann prize for performance, later graduating with first class honours. In 2014 the Conservatorium awarded him an EMR Travel Scholarship, enabling him to have lessons with Jonathan Kelley, Nick Deutsch and Nicholas Daniel, to name a few. Joshua performed with the Adelaide Youth Orchestra as an orchestral member and soloist. While still a student, Joshua began his freelance career with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and as principal oboe with the Adelaide Art Orchestra. Since graduating, he has been invited to play guest principal oboe with both the ASO and, in 2016, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra.

New Zealand clarinettist David McGregor studied with Philip Green (Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, former NZSO) at Victoria University of Wellington from 2011 to 2014. While studying in Wellington, he also played in the Royal New Zealand Air Force Band in section and principal positions. He was principal clarinet of the NZSO National Youth Orchestra from 2012 to 2014, and has also been a frequent guest principal player with Orchestra Wellington and a guest section player with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra since 2013.

In 2015 he moved to Hobart, Tasmania, where he studied with Francesco Celata (SSO) at the University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music. Last year he appeared as soloist with the Wellington Chamber Orchestra, performing Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No.2.

Although he was born in Virginia, USA, 23-year-old bassoonist Christopher Haycroft grew up and began his musical studies in Cooroy, a small town on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. He began studying the bassoon at age 15 and the following year joined the Queensland Youth Orchestra, of which he was a member for four years. In 2013 Chris completed his Bachelor of Music degree at the Queensland Conservatorium where he studied under David Mitchell and completed a six-month internship with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. From 2014 to 2016 Chris completed the Professional Performance Program at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne, studying under Elise Millman.

Chris has been a frequent member of the Australian Youth Orchestra and in 2016 participated in the AYO’s 22nd International Tour, performing in Germany, The Netherlands, China and Australia. He has also performed with the Queensland and Tasmanian symphony orchestras and is a casual musician with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Alice Yang was born in China and moved to Melbourne with her family at the age of ten. She began learning the horn at the age of 11, studying with Xiao Yang and Geoff Collinson. She completed her Bachelor of Music degree with honours in 2013 at the Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne, where she studied with Barry Tuckwell and Geoff Lierse. She currently holds the Richard Merewether French Horn Fellowship at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she is completing her Doctorate of Musical Arts, studying with David Thompson. She has also studied with Ben Jacks and Rachel Silver of the SSO.

As a chamber musician she was chosen to attend the Sydney Conservatorium’s Estivo Chamber Music Summer School in Verona in 2015 and 2016. And as a soloist she has performed Richard Strauss’s Horn Concerto No.1 with the Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jenna Smith completed her Bachelor of Music performance degree with first class honours in 2016, studying at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Andrew Evans. While a student, she received the Ted and Susan Meller Memorial Scholarship, the James Witheford Foundation Award for Brass, and the Busby Musical Scholarship. She also played in masterclasses for musicians such as Håkan Hardenberger and Markus Würsch.

She has performed with Sydney and Tasmanian symphony orchestras, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra and the SSO Sinfonia. In 2016, she was also a member of the Australian World Orchestra’s Academy Program and toured to Singapore. She has participated in Australian Youth Orchestra programs since 2012 and will be performing with the AYO as Principal Trumpet in 2017. She has also been a member of the Australian International Symphony Orchestra Institute.

Born in Adelaide, Amanda Tillett started trombone at the age of nine, learning from her father Greg Tillett. In 2007 she was awarded a Single Studies Scholarship at the Elder Conservatorium, where she studied with Head of Brass Howard Parkinson and played with Adelaide University orchestras and brass ensembles while still attending school. In the first year of her Bachelor of Music degree she received the Elder Conservatorium Director’s Award for Outstanding Performance Results, and went on to complete her Honours degree in 2013. The following year Amanda moved to Brisbane for further performance opportunities, where she worked with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Queensland Virtuosi, as well as tutoring at high schools and the Queensland Youth Orchestra. Amanda has also appeared with the Adelaide and Tasmanian symphony orchestras and for Opera Australia in Adelaide. She spent the past two years in Melbourne at the Australian National Academy of Music studying with Scott Kinmont (SSO), Jessica Buzzbee and Michael Mulcahy.

Sami Butler is a percussionist from Adelaide. With both his parents being musicians in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Sami has always been involved with classical music. After a brief cameo playing the violin, Sami began percussion lessons at age ten. At age 21, he graduated from the Elder Conservatorium of Music with first class honours, having studied with Amanda Grigg.

Recent highlights include being awarded first place at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Snare Drum Award in 2013, undertaking a mentorship with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2014, and performing as principal percussionist with the Australian Youth Orchestra in 2015 and 2016 – including an international tour to Europe and China. Over the past two years he has also appeared in many symphonic, ballet and opera performances with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Currently Sami plays as a casual percussionist with the Sydney, Adelaide and Tasmanian symphony orchestras.

Gemma Lee recently completed a performance degree studying with Goetz Richter at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she held the Frank Hammond Merit Scholarship. As a student she played with the Sydney Youth Orchestra, SSO Sinfonia 2015 and was concertmaster of the Sydney Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra. She also participated in the Sydney Conservatorium’s Estivo Chamber Music Summer School in Verona as part of a string quartet working extensively with the Amaryllis Quartet and Wolfram Christ, and travelled to the Central Conservatory in Beijing as part of the Pacific Alliance of Music Schools representing the Sydney Conservatorium. Gemma recently participated as a finalist in the Fine Music Young Virtuoso Award and the Kendall National Violin Competition.

Hailing from Canberra, Bridget O’Donnell moved to Sydney at 15 to study under Alice Waten at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. During her time there as a Ted & Susan Meller Scholar, she was the founding 2nd violinist of the Hillel Quartet and with this ensemble she studied at ProQuartet in Paris, Salzburg and London as well as the Estivo Chamber Music Festival in Verona. Shortly after completing her performance degree, she was granted the Australian Youth Orchestra’s Ernst V. Llewellyn Travelling Scholarship, which allowed her to spend several months studying with prominent teachers at some of the leading schools in the United States. Bridget was the youngest member of the Verbrugghen Ensemble (Sydney Conservatorium ensemble in residence) and also performed with the SSO Sinfonia. Recently, she performed in masterclasses for eminent violinists Christian Tetzlaff and Vadim Gluzman as well as pianist Lang Lang. Bridget returns to the Fellowship having been an SSO Violin Fellow in 2016.

Bridget O’Donnell plays an 1821 Francesco Guadagnini violin, generously loaned by Lespets & Camden Fine Violins.

Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Martin Alexander began his tertiary studies at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, majoring first in piano, then viola, studying with Graeme Jennings. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree, before continuing his studies at the University of Tasmania with Jo St Leon. Martin then studied with violist Kathryn Lockwood at the University of Massachusetts (USA), completing a Masters degree, and most recently, spent a year at the Australian National Academy of Music, studying with Caroline Henbest.

Martin has performed with the Queensland, Melbourne and Tasmanian symphony orchestras, and in 2015 he was selected as the Viola Emerging Artist for ACO2 (now the ACO Collective). He has also performed in masterclasses for Tobias Lea, Yuri Zhislin, Toby Appel, Lawrence Power and Guy Ben-Ziony.

Joseph Cohen began his musical journey as a violinist: beginning lessons at the age of four and taking his studies to the tertiary level at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where his teacher was head of strings, Goetz Richter. Joseph then switched to viola, studying with Stuart Johnson (SSO). He has played in some of Australia’s finest youth orchestras, allowing him countless opportunities to work with other inspiring musicians of the same age, as well as with internationally renowned artists such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Steve Reich and Michael Tilson Thomas. Joseph has also performed in masterclasses with Charles Castleman, Roger Benedict (SSO) and Randolph Kelly.

Queenslander Nils Hobiger began learning cello at age four, and was awarded his Trinity College London Performer’s Certificate aged 14, receiving his Associate Diploma in Music Australia the following year. He completed a Bachelor of Music degree at the Queensland Conservatorium in 2012, and his honours year at the University of Tasmania in 2013 on an orchestral scholarship. In 2014 a D&MV McDonald Scholarship from the University of Tasmania allowed him to travel to London for tuition and masterclasses from prominent cellists, and in 2015 he toured Germany with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra Academy, performing in Dortmund, Essen and Cologne. Last year he completed his third and final year at the Australian National Academy of Music, studying with Howard Penny. Nils has performed as a casual musician with the Melbourne and Tasmanian symphony orchestras and with Orchestra Victoria.

Ruben Palma began to play the cello aged six, and studied with Lindy Reksten, Julian Smiles, Howard Penny and Nicolas Altstaedt in Canberra, Melbourne and Germany. Performance highlights include: Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, Elgar’s Cello Concerto, Schumann’s Cello Concerto, Haydn’s Cello Concerto No.1, an award-winning tour of Germany performing Morton Feldman's Patterns in a Chromatic Field in 2013, solo performances at the 2014 and 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, and a 2016 solo recital at MARTE (the Art Museum of El Salvador) in San Salvador. Ruben is a graduate of both the Victorian College of the Arts and the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz (Academy of Music and Dance) in Cologne, and is currently studying for a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Ruben was an Australian Chamber Orchestra Emerging Artist in 2015 and a prize winner and finalist in the inaugural 2014 Australian Cello Awards.

Alanna Jones comes from a bicultural background: she was born in Midlothian, Illinois, and moved to New Zealand in 1999. After studying piano and harp, she began her official studies on the double bass in 2008. Her principal teachers include Scott Pingel at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she completed her undergraduate degree, and Timothy Pitts at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University, where she completed her postgraduate degree. In 2013 she was the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra double bass fellow and last year a contract member of the orchestra. In 2014–15 she was a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow.

Primarily a freelancer, Alanna works regularly with New Zealand’s professional and regional orchestras, including Opus Orchestra and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and has been invited to play with the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Alongside her musical endeavours, Alanna has been coaching gymnastics for 14 years and continues to coach recreational gymnastics to all ages.