Music & Tea at Wollongong Gallery - Book Any Concert in the Series

EMERGING CONCERT ARTIST SERIES 3. 

Oct 5, 'Figures of Love'  Character Pieces from the 19th and 20th Centuries

 Ariana Ricci, soprano| Natalia Ricci, piano

Soprano Ariana Ricci is in her final year of a Bachelor of Music (Performance) degree at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She is currently studying as a full scholarship student under the Ted and Susan Meller Memorial Scholarship. Ariana's performed operatic roles this year have included Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel (Humperdinck) as well as Le Feu in L'enfant et les sortilèges (Ravel) which she performed in as part of the Royal College of Music Winter School, for which she was awarded a Henderson Traveller's Scholarship to attend. In 2022, she performed as a principal artist at the Albury Chamber Music Festival in their production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas after performing the same role of First Witch earlier in the year with St Paul's College. This year with St Paul's College, Ariana also performed the roles of Nymph, Spring, First Woman and First Fairy in their production of Purcell's 'The Fairy Queen'.

Concert soloist credits this year have included performing as a soprano soloist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in Ešenvalds' 'Passion and Resurrection' conducted by Stephen Layton MBE in the Sydney Opera House concert hall and in Haydn's 'Nelson' Mass with the Sydney Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra.

Ariana sings regularly with the St James King Street choir and as a choral scholar at the St Paul's College Chapel Choir. She has performed in masterclasses with Prof. Lynne Dawson, Margaret Plummer and Ola Rudner. In 2020, she was awarded first prizes in the Voice - Young Artist categories of both the 2nd Vienna International Music Competition and the Manhattan International Music Competition, and in 2021, she received a slew of first prizes in the Sydney Eisteddfod, including the Intermediate Vocal Award. This year, Ariana has progressed to the Demant Dreikurs Scholarship Competition finals and looks forward to competing in the finals in a few months.

Ariana additionally studied as a violinist at the Conservatorium for her Bachelor's degree and has also performed as a soloist with orchestra on violin many times from a young age. Ariana's teachers have included Assoc. Prof. Goetz Richter AM and Dr Rowena Cowley and is currently studying with Dr. Anke Hoeppner-Ryan.

Natalia Ricci

Australian-born pianist Natalia Ricci enjoys a successful career as chamber musician, soloist and teacher, having performed and recorded internationally over the past 40 years in the USA, Canada, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand and throughout Europe.
Natalia has made many recordings for the BBC, ABC, Canadian, Italian, Norwegian and New Zealand national radios and has also appeared in live concert telecasts in Italy, Norway, Spain and Australia. She has performed in international music festivals such as the Banff Summer Chamber Music Festival, Canada, the International Festival of Spanish Music and Dance, 'Encuentros Españoles', the 2021 Sydney Festival, the International Bartok Festival, Hungary, the 'Gradus' International Music Festival, Spain, the London Objective Music Festival, UK, the Deia International Festival, Mallorca and the Sydney Symphony Contemporary Music Festival.

As a collaborative artist, Natalia is especially recognised for her work with string players and has been associate artist to renowned musicians such as Ruggiero Ricci, Leonid Gorokhov, Kolja Blacher and Adelina Oprean.

Natalia holds the position of Senior Lecturer in Piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and is a dedicated and sought-after teacher whose students have been major prize-winners in many prestigious international and national competitions.
She is a renowned specialist in Spanish music and is frequently invited to give masterclasses abroad in South America, Europe and New Zealand and to adjudicate in national and international piano competitions.

Nov 2,  A Trumpets Tale Jude Macarthur and  with a Prelude of Violin Music by Hana Lee and Jack Mao

Program

Tom Tucker, Prelude to Fanfare
Joseph Haydn, Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major
Eric Ewazen, Sonata for Trumpet and Piano

Judes is a trumpeter from the Blue Mountains studying at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He is a member of multiple youth orchestras and participated in his first international tour to the United Kingdom at 13. He has also played with Sydney Symphony Orchestra and other notable ensemble. In addition to classical music, Jude embraces folk and jazz. 

Dec 7, Birth and Rebirth & Premier of New Works - Paul Nicolaou, harp | Emily Su, violin | James Monro, cello 

In May, Paul Nicolaou and violinist Robert Smith delivered a stunning programme, 'Mediations by Nightfall'.  Paul returns with two musical friends and a captivating program.  Cellist James Monro is also a composer. This will be a concert of works rich with Australian composers!

Program (TBC)

Austin Wintory | Nascence 
Charles Tessier | Quand le flambeau du monde (When the torch of the world) 
James Monro | Saturated Reflection (World Premiere)
Maurice Ravel | Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) 
Gabriel Fauré | Élégie
Paul Nicolaou | TBC (World Premiere)
Ross Edwards | Piano Trio (Movement 1)  and Ecstatic Dance No. 2

Paul Nicolaou
Paul is an emerging harpist and composer based in Sydney, Australia. He has quickly gained international recognition as a creative and virtuosic young artist, receiving the Most Outstanding Performer Award at the 2022 Sydney Harp Eisteddfod, 2021 Monash University Emerging Composer Prize, and was a winner of the 2022 Artology 'Fanfare' Competition. He was also shortlisted for ABC Classic's 2022 Composer Commissioning Fund and was offered a scholarship from the highly prestigious Manhattan School of Music.

Paul studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music under the tutelage of internationally celebrated harpist Alice Giles AM. He has established himself as an accomplished and sought-after performer, appearing as Principal Harpist of the Australian Youth Orchestra, Bishop Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Fellowship Ensemble, Aussie Pops Orchestra, Willoughby Symphony Orchestra and The Sydney Youth Orchestra.
Paul's artistry has been widely acknowledged, with Mark Walton expressing, "[Paul] plays with a profound musicality… This skill usually takes years to develop, and he understands it already. Every single note he played fitted into this glorious soundscape."

Emily Su is a recent alumnus of the Australian National Academy of Music, where she studied under Dr Robin Wilson. Emily has been lucky to live a crazy double life, studying medical science by day and being a musician, well, not entirely by night, but close enough! She was honoured to be a 2022 Emerging Artist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. She was the 2022 Australian Youth Orchestra concertmaster and a Fellow with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In previous years, Emily won the 2021 Great Romantics Competition at the Melbourne Recital Centre and the 2021 Australian Youth Classical Music Competition. Recently, Emily also placed second in the Dorcas McClean Violin Competition, receiving a scholarship, and was awarded the 2021 ANAM Prize for Best First Year Recital. Last year, Emily presented recitals at the Bendigo Chamber Music Festival and in country Victoria and projects with the ACO Collective and ACO Pier 2/3 Opening Festival in Sydney. In past years, Emily has performed as a guest violinist with the Australian Piano Quartet and as a soloist with the ACO Academy, Penrith Symphony, Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic and Melbourne Art of Sound Orchestras.

James Monro is in his second year at the Australian National University, studying mathematics, physics, and music. He loves to explore the cross-contamination between the three, believing that each area enriches the understanding and appreciation of the others.

James holds the Friends of the ANU School of Music Performance Scholarship and the Ruth Pfanner Undergraduate Scholarship. He is a member of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Youth Orchestra and is the principal cellist in the ANU Orchestra. In January 2023, James was the principal cello of the National Music Camp Chamber Orchestra.

James is a solo and chamber musician as much as he is an orchestral musician, performing the Dvorak and Shostakovich cello concertos with orchestras in 2022, described by reviewers as a "dynamo on the cello", and "outstanding… every note clear, expressive and emotionally warm". He also composed and performed one of his solo cello compositions for Musica Viva at Government House.

He is part of the Ellery string quartet, which delivers "youthful enthusiasm, unbridled passionate, confident playing and fine music". The quartet won First Prize and the People's Choice award in the 2022 ANU School of Music chamber music awards.

In 2021 James was awarded a bronze medal in the International Physics Olympiad and competed in the International Linguistics Olympiad. In 2020 he won the rank of recitalist in the National Youth Concerto Competition, and his piano trio received the Druce Family prize in Musica Viva's Strike a Chord competition. In 2019, he received his LMusA. James studies with Rachel Johnston and plays an English cello made by George Withers in 1910.