Our Young Composers

Cavin Adams

Cavin Adams grew up in New Zealand and played with the Christchurch Youth Recorder Ensemble. 

Cappuccino Break won the under 18 composition section of the Third National Recorder Competition.

Karyn Ashley

Karyn Ashley was born in 1984 and lives in Armidale NSW. She studied recorder with Zana Clarke and played with the group Battalla Famossa. She won the under-18 section of the Third National Recorder Competition in 2000 and in the same year achieved her LMusA.

Spasmodic was commended in the under 18 section of the National Recorder Composition Competition in 2000.

Karyn enjoys playing fast and difficult music and is always looking for pieces that other people think are impossible to play.

Jason Jeffery

Jason Jeffery is currently completing a Diploma of Education at Monash University, Clayton Campus. Previously he completed his Bachelor of Music with Honours in Performance and Composition, also at Monash University. There he studied jazz guitar under James Wilson and composition under Thomas Reiner. Jason has studied music since he entered high school, where his first instrument was the alto saxophone. He then moved onto piano and finally to guitar, which is now his principal instrument. As a member of various bands and ensembles he has appeared and participated at many festivals and concerts, receiving awards for his efforts.

Jason has performed with ensembles such as: Funktional, The Jazz Trio, Groove Force and Past Echoes. He has also been a member of the Monash University choir, Viva Voce, and represented the choir on their 1997 tour of Japan.

His compositions are diverse in style and have been described as having a witty sense of humour by his peers. In the future Jason would like to promote his work both as performer and composer and become part of the larger musical community.

Elizabeth Law

Elizabeth Law grew up in Armidale and was a student at Armidale High School. She learned recorder from Zana Clarke. Enjoying science, art, English , music and travelling, she was inspired to write the piece Crustaceans after watching documentaries about crabs and a trip to the beach. She is currently a student at Macquarie University.

Crustaceans is a programmatic piece that describes the emergence of crabs (and other creatures) from their holes, tentatively at first, then in more of a rush. A sudden loud noise sends them scurrying back to their holes until they feel safe to emerge again.

Nicholas Ng

Nicholas Ng (b. 1979) writes both contemporary classical music and music for commercial purposes. In 2001, he graduated with first class honours in Composition from Sydney University. As a student, Nicholas composed for the United Nations of Australia, the Australian Youth Orchestra National Music Camp (2000 and 2002), and the Sydney Spring Festival's Young Composers Salon (2000 and 2001).

His achievements include the Young Composers Salon Best Composition Prize, the Ignaz Friedman Memorial Prize for Composition and the Sarah Theresa Makinson Prize for Composition.

Nicholas has had two ABC-FM broadcasts and an American first performance of his By Crescent Moon and Magpie Song. He is now working on an SBS documentary film score and hopes to study composition in France after completing his doctorate in Ethnomusicology at Sydney University.

Keiran Parker

Keiran Parker grew up in Armidale and was a student at Armidale High School. She played recorder with the ensemble Batalla Famossa and appears on their CD The Great Emu War (Orpheus Music OM101).

She is currently a student at Macquarie University.

Her piece . . . and Friends was written when she was fourteen and received third place in the Gould League of NSW and Sydney Morning Herald Project Environment 1997 competition.

Tracey Parker

Tracey Parker was born in 1979. She began playing the tenor saxophone at the age of twelve and began composing in 1995. In 1997 she was accepted into Newcastle Conservatorium of Music where she studies composition under the direction of Colin Spiers. Many of her works have been performed over the last two years in Conservatorium Composers' Concerts.

Currently she is working on three short pieces for mezzo soprano and small ensemble based on texts by E V Rieu, Eleanor Farjeon and A A Milne, and is also planning some pieces for saxophone.

Colin Schmidt

Colin Schmidt was born in 1981 and grew up in Wodonga. He first took an interest in the recorder at five years of age and he also plays the piano and sings in a choir. He completed AMEB 8th grade recorder in 1994 and 7th grade piano in 1997 and Year 12 in 1998.

He enjoys listening to a wide range of music including baroque, contemporary, metal and alternative rock and is also interested in computer programming.

Erinn Thornton

Erinn Thornton lives in Armidale NSW and studies recorder with Zana Clarke. She plays in the group Batalla Famossa. Milk Blue won the Year 11 composition in the 2002 Armidake Eisteddfod. Snow Coat won the 2002 Gould League competition and Australian Music Centre Award.

Fiona Warnock

Fiona Warnock was born in Armidale in 1981 and is currently studying Law at University of New England. In 1997 she obtained her AMusA on recorder and also won the open recorder championship in the Armidale Eisteddfod. Fiona wrote her first composition in 1991 and since then has won places in the annual Gould League Competition, Armidale and Inverell Eisteddfods for her compositions.

Rainforest Nocturne was written in 1994 when she was 13. It is her only piece for recorder and piano. Her other works are for piano solo and voice and piano.

Jessica Wells

Jessica Wells was born in Florida, USA in 1974 and migrated to Australia at the age of 11. She completed her Bachelor of Music degree in Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1996 and graduated with first class honours. A University Postgraduate Award allowed Jessica to complete her Masters Degree at the Conservatorium under Dr Bozidar Kos, and since 1998 has been teaching composition there part-time.

Jessica's orchestral music has been performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Sinfonia, Queensland Orchestra and Sydney Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra. Her piece The Eight Immortals was the only Australian finalist in the prestigious Alexander Zemlinsky International Prize for orchestral composition in the USA.

Jessica has received two Australia Council Grants in the last two years to write new compositions for solo harp and the Sydney Conservatorium Cello Ensemble, and was commissioned by Symphony Australia to write a work for the TSO in 2001 as part of the New Voices program. Many of her works have been recorded and broadcast by the ABC, and she was recently a semi-finalist in the Arts category of the Young Australian of the Year Awards for 2001.