Saffire or Saffire: The Australian Guitar Quartet were an Australian classical music group, which formed in 2002. It consisted of four guitarists Anthony Field, Slava Grigoryan, Gareth Koch and Karin Schaupp. Leonard Grigoryan, Slava's younger brother, replaced Field in 2005. The members also worked as solo performers and in other ensembles. Their debut album, Saffire: The Australian Guitar Quartet, was released in June 2003, which peaked at No. 46 on the ARIA Albums Chart and No. 1 on the related ARIA Classical Chart. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2003 it won the Best Classical Album category. They released two more albums, Nostálgica and Renaissance before disbanding in 2007.
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an Australian orchestra based in Melbourne. Its two predecessors make it the oldest professional orchestra in Australia, the MSO is resident at Hamer Hall. The MSO has its own choir, the MSO Chorus, following integration with the Melbourne Chorale in 2008.
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is a South Australian performing arts organization, established in 1936.
John Roger Smalley AM was an Anglo-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley was a senior honorary research fellow at the School of Music, University of Western Australia in Perth and honorary research associate at the University of Sydney.
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs is Australia’s largest choral organisation. It presents its own annual concert series in the Sydney Opera House the City Recital Hall, and other venues in New South Wales, as well as serving as chorus for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Richard Leo Tognetti AO is a leading Australian musician recognised internationally as a violin soloist, ensemble player, leader, composer and arranger, conductor and artistic director.
William Barton is an Australian Aboriginal didgeridoo player. He was born in Mount Isa, Queensland on 4 June 1981 and learned to play from his uncle, an elder of the Wannyi, Lardil and Kalkadunga tribes of Western Queensland. He is widely recognised as one of Australia's finest traditional didgeridoo players and a leading didgeridoo player in the classical world.
Nigel Westlake is an Australian composer, musician and conductor.
Sara Macliver is an Australian soprano singer, born and raised in Perth, Western Australia. Macliver is one of Australia’s most popular and versatile artists, appearing in operas, concert and recital performances and on numerous recordings. She is regarded as one of the leading exponents of Baroque repertoire in Australia, and lectures in Voice at the UWA Conservatorium of Music.
Tamara Anna Cislowska is an Australian concert pianist. She has performed across most of the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, South America, Italy, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, The Netherlands and Poland, and has played with the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic and Romanian Philharmonic orchestras as well as all six major Australian symphony orchestras.
David Porcelijn is a Dutch composer and conductor.
Ian Munro is an Australian pianist, composer, writer and music educator. His career has taken him to over 30 countries in Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia.
Marshall McGuire is an Australian harpist, teacher, conductor and musical administrator. He has been described as the world's greatest champion of new music for the harp. Tristram Cary has written "A new school of harp music is emerging from the enterprise of this innovative master performer".
Sean Michael O'Boyle AM is an Australian composer and conductor.
Sally Whitwell is an Australian classical music pianist, composer, arranger, conductor and teacher. She has released four solo albums, Mad Rush: Piano Music of Philip Glass, The Good, the Bad and the Awkward, All Imperfect Things: The Piano Music of Michael Nyman and "I Was Flying" all on the ABC Classics record label. All three albums have peaked in the top 5 on the ARIA Charts' Classical Albums.
The earliest western musical influences in Australia can be traced to two distinct sources: in the first settlements, the large body of convicts, soldiers and sailors who brought the traditional folk music of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland; and the first free settlers, some of whom had been exposed to the European classical music tradition in their upbringing. An example of original music by a convict would be an 1861 tune dedicated to settler James Gordon by fiddler constable Alexander Laing. Very little music has survived from this early period, although there are samples of music originating from Sydney and Hobart that date back to the early 19th century. Musical publications from this period preserved in Australian libraries include works by Charles Edward Horsley, William Stanley, Isaac Nathan, Charles Sandys Packer, Frederick Augustus Packer, Carl Linger, Francis Hartwell Henslowe, Frederick Ellard, Raimund Pechotsch and Julius Siede.
Romano Crivici (1953) is an Australian violinist, pianist and composer.
ABC Music is an Australian independent record label that operates as part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The label has been in existence for over 40 years and represents a large and diverse catalogue of recordings by Australian and international artists.
James Ledger is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music, and senior lecturer in composition at the Conservatorium of Music at the University of Western Australia, where he is Chair of Orchestral Composition.
Sinfonia Australis is an Australian early music ensemble founded by Antony Walker and Alison Johnston. They play on period instruments. They were founded alongside vocal ensemble Cantillation and the Orchestra of the Antipodes. Along with Gerard Willems received a nomination for the 2004 ARIA Award for Best Classical Album with their album Beethoven Complete Piano Concertos.
