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Helen Thomson is a performer, recording artist, composer, arranger, sound designer,
musical director and vocal coach. Her musical career spans thirty years (beginning with a
solo debut in Donald Hollierʼs contemporary opera, In Dulci Jubilo, at the age of 10)
and several countries.
PERFORMANCE / RECORDING
In Australia, Helen has performed with the Song Company and e21, and, during an
eight year stint in Europe, with Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, the
Netherlands Bach Society, the Egidius College (including on their Leiden Choir Book
CD series) the Netherlands Radio Choir, Trigon, Musica Poetica (including on the CD
“Musicalische Frühlings-Früchte”, released on the Challenge label) and Musica
Universalis.
Since her return to Australia in 2011, Helen has appeared on ABC FM and Compass, in
various performances with baroque ensemble Nuove Musiche, as a solo act performing original work
at the Cygnet Festival, in the Australian premiere of Carl Rütti‘s Requiem performed by Loose Canon
and the Hobart Chamber Orchestra, in the world premiere of Ralph Middenway’s Sun of Umbria, in
Haydn’s Creation as part of the Festival of Voices 2015, in a contemporary program at the
Spiegeltent with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus, as well as further afield at the Ballarat
Goldfields and Newman College Advent Festivals. Forthcoming projects include a partnership with
Loose Canon chamber singers, and a groundbreaking new work project entitled A Tasmanian
Requiem, further details of which can be found under "Composition" below.
COMPOSITION
Helen’s debut CD, meditatio / xv, attracted Australia Council New Work funding – with Grand
Master of Shakuhachi, Riley Lee, Helen created a CD of Gregorian Chant, Zen Meditations, and new
works with a found-sound-based live electroacoustic element forming a “third voice” informed by the
intersection of these two different but complementary traditions. A mass setting composed by Helen
also appears on women’s trio Triptych’s inaugural CD, described in Limelight Magazine as “exquisite,
near-flawless performances”.
Since returning to Australia, Helen has resumed composing, with new compositions for ensemble
Sequenza, to open the Bonfire Ceremony at the 2015 Festival of Voices (performed by CoCheol), as
part of the Queer Narratives: Story to Song project with support from Tasmanian Regional Arts and
Events Tasmania. In 2016 Helen will compose A Tasmanian Requiem, a full-length work for brass
and vocal double quintet, in collaboration with Tasmanian Aboriginal artists Greg Lehman (libretto)
and Julie Gough (audio-visual component), produced by Frances Butler with generous support
through Arts Tasmania's Artist Investment program.
MUSICAL DIRECTION
Helen also directs the Sing Australia Kingston and Hobart choirs and QTas choir, which received
funding in 2015 from Tasmanian Regional Arts and Events Tasmania to put together “Queer
Narratives: Story to Song”, a groundbreaking project incorporating stories of the Tasmanian LGBTIQ
community’s lived experience in newly composed works by Tasmanian composers and songwriters.
Brett Rutherford began his professional career as a full time cellist with the Sydney
Elizabethan Orchestra, now known as the AOBO. In 1984 he spent a year of study in
London with Alexander Baillie and William Pleeth and soon after returning, accepted a
full time position in the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
Brett, with his wife Janet and Barbara Jane Gilby, formed the Trigon ensemble which
performed regularly around Tasmania and interstate and featured on ABC television
and classic FM. Brett is also a founding member of the the Kettering Piano Quartet,
which has a regular concert series at the Town Hall and has also performed for classic
FM and around the state.
Brett also plays the Viola Da Gamba and has been a member of the early music group,
Backgammon. Brett is a founding member of Sequenza, formerly Nuove Musiche
Ensemble.
Matthew Goddard commenced his musical journey as a drum kit player in Hobart, his
musical interests eventually broadening into orchestral percussion. He studied
percussion and timpani at the Victorian College of the Arts, graduating with an honours
degree in Music Performance in 1997. Matthew maintained a busy freelance career in
Melbourne, working primarily with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He was also a
founding member of the percussion quartet Woof! which performed many concerts of
new and established percussion quartet repertoire, recorded an ARIA-nominated CS of
the Tuneful Percussion Works of Percy Grainger and was part of the Musica Viva In
Schools programme in Victoria.
In 1998 Matthew worked in Japan as Guest Timpanist and Percussionist with the
Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa before returning to his hometown of Hobart in 1999 to
take up his current position as Principal Timpanist with the Tasmanian Symphony
Orchestra. Matthew also performs with Tracey Patten in the percussion duo MATTRA
and is percussionist with the ensemble Sequenza.
Matthew maintains a keen interest in new music and in recent years has premiered Sudhana’s Steps
by Phil Treloar, a set of six pieces for solo timpani which he performed as part of MONA FOMA
2014 and in the Synaesthesia+ festival at MONA later in the same year. In January 2016 he
performed a solo programme at MONA FOMA which included Elliot Carter’s Eight Pieces for Four
Timpani. Future projects will include performing the recently completed Diaphonous Nebulosities for
solo timpanist, written for him by Scott McIntyre.
David Malone performs throughout Australia as a solo recitalist and chamber musician
as a classical guitarist. He performs on lute and guitar with the Sequenza ensemble
and is a member of the Australian Guitar Trio. He has performed with the Adelaide,
Tasmanian and Canberra Symphony Orchestras in Australia and the Northern Sinfonia
of England and the Cambridge University Jazz Orchestra in the UK.
He enjoys collaborating with composers and performing new music. Pieces have been
written for him by composers Maria Grenfell, Russell Gilmour, Don Kay and Raffaele
Marcellino amongst others.
David’s solo CD Fretsongs, released on the Tall Poppies label, featured premiere
recordings of new works by composers resident in Tasmania, many of which had been
composed for him. It received an Australian Art Music Award in 2007 and a fivestar
rating in Limelight, Australia’s classical music magazine.
David was a featured artist in the SBS program A Fork in Australia and his performances have been
broadcast by ABC Classic FM and ABC Radio National.
David Malone began his guitar studies in Sydney and completed his undergraduate music studies as
a student of Timothy Kain at the Canberra School of Music. He attended masterclasses in Finland
with Leo Brouwer, Sharon Isbin and Costas Cotsiolis and in England with John Duarte and Stepan
Rak. With a Spanish Government scholarship he attended the 30th annual course for the
performance of Spanish Music in Santiago de Compostela. David holds undergraduate degrees in
Music (CSM) and Commerce (UNSW) and Masters degrees in Music (Tas) and Tertiary Education
Management (Melb).
A committed teacher, David Malone has given masterclasses at the University of Melbourne and
the Victorian College of the Arts. He currently teaches at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music at
the University of Tasmania. David is married to composer Maria Grenfell and they live with their
two children in Hobart, Tasmania.