Following a long and celebrated career as Concertmaster of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Wilma now focuses on chamber music and guest-performing opportunities with the Australian and New Zealand orchestras. She plays regularly with the Australian World Orchestra, relishing the opportunity to work with distinguished conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle and Zubin Mehta.

Born in Fiji and raised in New Zealand, Wilma studied at the New England Conservatory in Boston with Dorothy DeLay (violin) and Louis Krasner (chamber music). She was founding First Violinist of the Lydian Quartet, winners of the Naumburg Award for Chamber Music and multiple prizes at Evian, Banff and Portsmouth International String Quartet Competitions. She also worked regularly with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and led the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra and the Harvard Chamber Orchestra before returning to New Zealand as founding First Violinist of the New Zealand String Quartet.

In addition to being curator/violinist of Wilma & Friends, now entering its thirteenth season, Wilma has returned to her string quartet roots as Second Violinist of the Flinders Quartet. She is also Musica Viva Australia’s Artistic Director of Competitions, overseeing the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and Strike A Chord, the Australian national chamber music competition for secondary school students. Enjoying active connections across the ditch, Wilma is Co-Artistic Director of the annual Martinborough Music Festival and is on the Board of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Photo credit: Agatha Yim, Polyphonic Pictures

Svetlana was born in Belgrade, Serbia, into a family of prominent Yugoslavian musicians. She studied at the prestigious Special High School of the Tchaikovsky Conservatorium of Music, Moscow, the Peabody Conservatorium, Baltimore, and the Cologne Hochschule of Music. In her student years she worked with legendary cellists, Daniil Shafran, Boris Pergamenshikov and Antonio Janigro. Even before she could perform, she was on stage at age six turning pages for her mother in performance with cellist André Navarra.

In her professional years she has toured Europe, Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand as a soloist and chamber musician including recent performances at the Belgrade International Cello Festival and the KotorArt festival in Montenegro.

As an orchestral musician she held the position of Associate Principal Cello with the Rheinische Philharmonie and has worked with the North German Radio Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, Cologne Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony and Singapore Symphony Orchestras.

She is a founding member of the unique and critically acclaimed trio, Ensemble Liaison. With Ensemble Liaison she performs an annual three-concert series at the Melbourne Recital Centre along with regular performances for Musica Viva, ABC Classic FM, and appearances at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Port Fairy and Woodend festivals. She has collaborated with many wonderful Australian and International artists including Nemanja Radulovic, Kathryn Stott, Ray Chen, Henning Kraggerud, Yura Lee, Jennifer Stumm, Emma Matthews, Cheryl Barker, Peter Coleman-Wright, Wilma Smith, Paul Grabowsky, David Jones and Tony Gould.

Svetlana’s recordings with Ensemble Liaison of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time for the Melba Recordings label and Trios of Brahms, Beethoven and Bruch for the Tall Poppies label have won high praise from critics around the world.

Her other passion is for teaching where she teaches cello and chamber music at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.

Photo credit: Greg Barrett

Founder of NZ Trio and Principal Cellist of Auckland Philharmonia, Ashley Brown is a passionate advocate for New Zealand music and is in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, teacher, adjudicator and recording artist. 

Early on, his teachers including Coral Bognuda and Euan Murdoch (Auckland), Alexander Ivashkin (Canterbury), Aldo Parisot (Yale) and William Pleeth (London), directed him to international competition success. More recently his natural curiosity led to a Doctorate exploring the collaborative relationship between composer and performer, and then on to sharing the stage with artists as diverse as Dame Gillian Whitehead, Moana Maniapoto, Phil Dadson, Krzysztof Penderecki, Michael Houstoun, Kristjan Järvi and Neil Finn. He continues to enjoy a career that explores the wildly diverse colours of the musical spectrum and is critically acclaimed as a musician of “unimpeachable artistry”.

New Zealander Todd Gibson-Cornish was appointed principal bassoon of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2016. Todd graduated from the Royal College of Music, London with a first class honours degree, as a Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Scholar supported by a Douglas and Hilda Simmonds Award. His teachers were Joost Bosdijk, Andrea de Flammineis and Julie Price. He was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal for outstanding musical contribution to the RCM, which was presented to him by King Charles III, formerly known as The Prince of Wales. Todd has played as guest principal with many UK orchestras, most recently with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Academy of St Martin in the Fields. He has played under conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Lorin Maazel, Bernard Haitink, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Andris Nelsons, performing at the BBC Proms and on tour in Europe and Asia. Concerto appearances with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra include the Australasian premiere of Christopher Rouse's Bassoon Concerto, Mozart Bassoon Concerto, and Vanhal Concerto for two bassoons. He has also performed the Jolivet Bassoon Concerto with the NZSO NYO. He has given masterclasses at the RCM London, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester and Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Recent chamber music projects include performing at the Martinborough Festival in New Zealand, UKARIA Adelaide, Ensemble 360 (UK) and Les Concerts du Zeppelin in France.

David Griffiths is a member of two of Australia’s leading chamber music ensembles, the Australia Ensemble@UNSW and Ensemble Liaison. He also holds the position of Associate Director and Associate Professor of Music at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, the University of Melbourne. A passionate performer and educator, he has presented performances and masterclasses in Asia, Europe, United States, the Middle East, New Zealand and Australia including a critically acclaimed debut in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. As a soloist he has appeared with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, Australia Ensemble@UNSW, Shanghai Radio Orchestra, Macau Orchestra and the Real Filharmonía de Galicia. As a member of Ensemble Liaison, he curates and performs an annual three-concert series at the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall at the Melbourne Recital Centre which is currently in its 18th season. He has also performed with the New Zealand, Goldner, Tinalley, Arcacia, Flinders and Australian String Quartets, the New York Wind Soloists, and the Southern Cross Soloists. He has collaborated with many leading artists including Nemanja Radulović, Ray Chen, Anthony Marwood, Henning Kraggerud and Emma Matthews, and has appeared at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, Port Fairy Festival, Lucerne Festival, Switzerland and the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. 

He has held positions as Associate Principal Clarinet with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Principal Clarinet of the Macau Orchestra and Principal Clarinet of the Shanghai Radio Orchestra. He has appeared as Guest Principal clarinet with all of Australia’s major symphony and opera ballet orchestras along with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He was acting Principal of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic and has performed with the New World Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the China Philharmonic, the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra. 

Some recent highlights include a Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet with the American String Quartet at the Portillo Festival, Chile, John Adams’ Gnarly Buttons Clarinet Concerto with the Australia Ensemble@UNSW, the Weiland Clarinet Concerto with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, a collaboration with accordion virtuoso James Crabb, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet and Concerto at the 3MBS Mozart Marathon and the complete chamber works of Brahms in one day at UKARIA in collaboration with Timothy Young, Svetlana Bogosavljevic and the Australian String Quartet. 

He is a Backun Clarinet performing artist and proudly performs on a cocobolo Lumiere custom clarinet. 

Photo credit: Keith Saunders

Described as a “consummate master of the bow” by The Strad magazine, Chinese-Australian cellist Yelian He is the winner of the 2009 Royal Over-Seas League String Competition in London and the Grand Prize and Audience Prize winner of the 2014 Australian Cello Awards competition in Sydney (now the Young Performer’s Awards).

Yelian is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he studied with Tchaikovsky Competition Gold Medal winner Karine Georgian. Over the course of his education, he studied with Liwei Qin, Janis Laurs, Christian Wojtowich, and Nelson Cooke, and has performed for many artists such as Antonio Meneses, Jian Wang, Ralph Kirshbaum, Julian Lloyd-Webber, Roels Dietens, Gary Hoffman, Lawrence Lesser, Valter Despalj, and Hannah Roberts.

He has performed at numerous renowned venues including Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Bridgewater Concert Hall, City Recital Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Hamer Hall. During his travels, Yelian has performed with the Sydney Symphony, West Australian Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Philharmonia, Auckland Philharmonia, Shanghai Philharmonic, Malaysian Philharmonic, and the Halle orchestras.

Yelian was presented to Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II in 2011 at a reception for outstanding Australians achievers in the UK and again in 2013 in a private performance for the Queen and her Commonwealth guests at Buckingham Palace.

Yelian studies Wing Chun Kung Fu with Master Darryl Moy, the same martial art studied by Bruce Lee and featured in the recent releases of the box office blockbuster “Ip Man” movies. Twice a week, Yelian teaches his class in Melbourne. With this background, he curates a Kung Fu Cellist series at the Melbourne Recital Centre each year, with the purpose of highlighting the skills and personalities of the performers.

Yelian plays on a cello made in 2018 by Yanbing Chen, as well as a cello by Hungarian luthier Adolphus Monnig made in 1877.

Photo credit: Agatha Yim, Polyphonic Pictures

Cameron Hill is an Australian violinist who appears as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player. He studied in Melbourne with Cathryn Bills, William Hennessy and Alice Waten, and in Vienna with Dora Schwarzberg and Boris Kuschnir. He has performed as a concerto soloist with many Australian orchestras, including the MSO, ASO, QSO, TSO, CSO and the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra. Cameron has also had success in major competitions, winning both the 2006 ABC Young Performer of the Year, and the 2005 Dorcas McClean National Violin Competition. His love of chamber music has seen him perform various works with Pinchas Zukerman and Emmanuel Pahud. He was the founding leader of the Hamer Quartet, appeared as leader of the Flinders Quartet, performs casually with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and has toured Europe with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. During 2014, Cameron appeared as guest Concertmaster of the MSO for several projects and performances, and in 2015, toured and performed as guest leader of the Australian String Quartet. He is currently the Associate Concertmaster of the ASO.

Originally hailing from the Adelaide Hills, Helen embarked on her journey to Melbourne back in 2000, drawn by the allure of the Australian National Academy of Music. Little did she know, that pivotal year would herald not only the incredible opportunities offered by ANAM but also the birth of the illustrious Flinders Quartet. A proud alumna of the Canberra School of Music, Helen’s prowess in chamber music earned her the prestigious Erica Haas Prize. Since her days at Marryatville High School, where her passion for string quartets first ignited, Helen harboured the dream of becoming a quartet violist. While playing as much chamber music as she could, she also participated in several Australian Youth Orchestra tours, becoming Principal Viola of the Camerata in 1998.

Although Flinders Quartet is her professional focus, Helen’s orchestral career has included regular work with leading Australian orchestras including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, where she has been Guest Principal and Associate Principal, Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Helen is a qualified Feldenkrais practitioner which profoundly influences her viola playing. She has taught viola and chamber music at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and Monash University as well as private students of all ages and abilities.

Helen plays a 1939 A.E. Smith viola and a bow made by Charles Bazin.

Photo credit: Pia Johnson

Christopher studied piano and violin before he discovered his passion lay in the rich harmonic and rhythmic complexities of the inner voices – so he bought a viola and the rest is history. After ten years as Principal Viola of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, he is now Principal Viola of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and is in high demand as a soloist and chamber musician in Australia and abroad. His colleagues at the Melbourne Symphony have even allowed him to conduct a few things here and here. He is the proud father of two wonderful daughters, Isabella and Dorothea. They both play musical instruments and sing in choirs, they’re just grand. Christopher's also plays Theremin. If you don’t know what that is, just ask him.

Christopher is fortunate enough to play on a 1610 Giovanni Paolo Maggini viola - kindly on loan from an anonymous benefactor.

Pianist Yasmin Rowe has earned critical acclaim as a soloist, collaborator and recording artist in Europe, Asia and Australia. As well as her concert hall recitals, she gives many live-to-air performances appearing as a frequent guest on Melbourne-based 3MBS Radio since 2019.

Yasmin is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music in the UK. She received a BMus with first class honours and subsequently an MMus with distinction under the tutelage of Murray McLachlan and Stephen Savage. In 2014, she was one of only four selected instrumentalists to receive an International Artist Diploma from the RNCM.

Yasmin has appeared as a feature soloist with numerous orchestras including Pro Musica, Stonnington Symphony Orchestra and the Manchester Camerata as well as guest principal pianist with Orchestra Victoria and celeste player with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

She has given performances at leading concert hall venues including the Wigmore and Bridgewater Halls, the Wuxi Grand Theatre, the Shanghai and Forbidden City Concert Halls, Melba Hall, Hanson Dyer Hall and the Melbourne Recital Centre.

In addition to her solo recitals, Yasmin enjoys maintaining her diverse portfolio as a chamber musician. This includes her performances with the duo Y-Squared, and the trios Rock Paper Scissors and Collide. In 2021, Yasmin was honoured to be the recipient of the Australian Geoffrey Parsons Award for collaborative piano.

Described as ‘thrilling’, Yasmin’s debut solo album with Willowhayne Records was selected as the BBC Music Magazine Editor’s Choice in September 2016. She made her second album with the cellist Yelian He and both these albums were later included as a highlight of British Airways’ long-haul flight entertainment system.

In 2021, Yasmin was featured on the ABC Classic label with ‘And Other Lines’, a seven-movement work written for her, oboist Briana Leaman and saxophonist Joseph Lallo by Melbourne composer Luke Severn.

In 2022 she was a Laureate of the Australian National Piano Award.

Photo credit: Agatha Yim, Polyphonic Pictures

Concertmaster of Orchestra Victoria, violinist Sulki Yu enjoys a busy career as a chamber musician, orchestral leader, and a soloist. A prize-winner of the 2006 Yehudi Menuhin and the 2007 Szigeti-Hubay International Violin Competitions, Sulki studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London under David Takeno.

Sulki has appeared as soloist with many orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Orchestre Nationale de Lille, Budapest Symphony, Moscow State Academic Symphony. She made debut recitals at the Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre to critical acclaim and has performed on BBC Radio 3 on numerous occasions. A passionate chamber musician, she has been invited to many international chamber music festivals where she has shared the stage with top artists. Founding member of the award-winning Fournier Trio, Sulki served as Principal First Violin at the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London until recently.