Joshua Oxley in a exciting young tenor based in Sydney. His operatic roles include Tamino (Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, Sydney Conservatorium), Don Ottavio (Mozart, Don Giovanni, Opera Hunter), Alfredo (Verdi, La Traviata, Opera New England), Jenik (Smetana, The Bartered Bride, Rockdale Opera Company), Mozart (Rimsky-Korsakov, Mozart and Salieri, Bare Bones Opera), Sam Polk (Floyd, Susannah, Opera New England), Remendado (Bizet, Carmen, Opera New England), Pane (Cavalli, La Calisto, Sydney Conservatorium), Tchaplitsky (Tchaikovsky, Pique Dame, Sydney Symphony Orchestra), and Frederic (Sullivan, Pirates of Penzance, Chatswood Musical Society. During studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, he won a place in the inaugural ESTIVO Summer School in Verona, Italy.

He has been tenor soloist for St. Andrew’s Cathedral (Handel, Messiah; Bach, Cantata No. 4, No. 62 No. 80, No. 115, No. 140) and has sung as a lay clerk and deputy at St Andrew’s Cathedral, St Mary’s Cathedral, and St James King St. Other major solo concert performances include Stabat Mater (Rossini), Mozart Requiem, St John Passion (Bach), Petite Messe Solennelle (Rossini), and Bernstein Mass (Conservatorium Centenary).

At the Sydney Eisteddfod, Joshua has twice been the recipient of the Ronald Dowd Memorial Prize, Finalist in the Opera and Arts Vocal Final, Semi-finalist in the Opera Scholarship, 2nd Place in the Joan Sutherland Memorial Prize (21-25). He was also awarded the 2016/17 BBM Scholarship for Music and won the Joan Carden Award in 2017.

After studying at the Tasmanian Conservatorium, tenor Benjamin Oxley joined Opera Queensland, and subsequently Opera Australia, performing a variety of small roles. His further vocal study took him to England, initially on contract with English National Opera (ENO), with whom he toured Russia.

Since leaving the ENO, Benjamin has pursued operatic and concert work and has appeared with Netherlands Opera in Lohengrin, Opera de Vlaamse in Billy Budd, and with Nationale Reisopera in Der fliegende Holländer, Parsifal, Manon Lescaut, Fidelio and Le Grande Macabre, the latter in the presence of the composer György Ligeti.

Benjamin has worked with many leading conductors, including Harry Bicket, Richard Bonynge, Stuart Challender, Paul Daniel, Sir Mark Elder, Valery Gergiev, Elgar Howarth, Sir Charles Mackerras, Edo de Waart and Jaap van Zweden.

Most notably, he was invited to appear in Simon Boccanegra and Tristan und Isolde with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado in Berlin, and toured with the orchestra to the Salzburg Easter Festival, as well as to Tokyo, Japan.

Operatic roles include: the title role in The Tales of Hoffmann for Rockdale Opera Company, RICCARDO A Masked Ball for Northern Opera, Newcastle-upon Tyne, ALFREDO La Traviata and LINDORO The Italian Girl in Algiers for St. Alban's Chamber Opera, IL DUCA Rigoletto for Activopera, NADIR The Pearl Fishers for Belcanto Opera and GUSTAVUS A Masked Ball and DON JOSE Carmen for Riverside Opera, London and Opera Bites, Sydney.

Opera Magazine, June 1996
“Lindoro ventured forbiddingly high for the Tasmanian tenor Benjamin Oxley, for all his painstaking cultivation of Rossinian skills. Boldly taking the upper leger lines as his natural habitat, he added top notes of his own, including a stratospheric ending to his Act 2 aria...”

Benjamin is a noted interpreter of the works of Britten, and is often heard in recital.

Cheryl Oxley is an experienced associate artist based in Sydney. She regularly accompanies AMEB and HSC exams, auditions and eisteddfods, and plays for musicals, operas and festivals - and ‘live’ radio.

Career highlights include:
playing before an audience of thousands for choral events such as the massed Choir Arts North and Arts Alive Festivals at the Sydney Opera House and Town Hall; the NSW State Choir, Gondwana and Sydney Children’s Choir.

Notable events in London including performance before the President of Kazakhstan; Repetiteur and Musical Director for operas and for London Theatre School Agent Concerts.

Competition highlights:
Official accompanist for the Australian State and National Band Championships; Finals of the Sydney Eisteddfod Opera Scholarship, and guest artist for the Sydney Piano Competition.

Cheryl is also an accomplished soprano, conductor, coach, french hornist and adjudicator. She runs a vibrant music school in Sydney called the StandOut Music Studio, and has developed online programs for students seeking excellence in singing and music performance.

Cheryl has played for thousands of singers and musicians over many years, but her greatest joy is to play for her children - the wonderful young tenor Joshua Oxley, and his younger sister with a voice that “shines like a diamond” - soprano Olivia Oxley.

During late 2019, Cheryl with her husband Benjamin formed LeBasqueTrio, an ensemble devoted to the repertoire for tenor voice, French horn and piano. Music featured is by Berlioz, Britten, Handel, Schubert and others.

Robert Johnson studied the French horn at the NSW Conservatorium of Music. After holding the principal horn positions with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and Opera Australia Orchestra, he was appointed Principal Horn with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1986, a position he retired from in 2017. During his time with the SSO, he has performed as soloist in works by Mozart, Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten and Ross Edwards, and in 2005 he was the horn soloist in the SSO’s first performance of Messiaen’s From the Canyons to the Stars.

In 2009 he commissioned and premiered with the SSO a new horn concerto, Lightfall, by Sydney composer Christopher Gordon. He has also appeared as guest principal with all the major Australian orchestras, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

He has played chamber music with the Australia Ensemble, Sydney Soloists and New Sydney Wind Quintet, and has appeared at the Huntington and Townsville chamber music festivals.

As a teacher he has worked as Senior Horn Lecturer at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Canberra School of Music, and he has appeared as Artist in Residence at universities and music schools in Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Hong Kong.

In addition to playing the horn, he sings Mediæval and Renaissance songs in his ‘other life’ as a countertenor and has conducted Ensembles of musicians from the SSO on a number of occasions as The Chamber Soloists of Sydney in “off the beaten track” repertoire.

[Photo credit: Keith Saunders]