Violinist and composer Simone Slattery is one of Australia’s most versatile young musicians and creators, with a passion for music from a wide range of eras. She performs across Australia and internationally as both soloist and ensemble member, holds a PhD from the University of Adelaide, and was a 2019 Churchill Fellow. Simone has collaborated with artists and ensembles in Japan, Korea, the UK, Canada, the USA and throughout Europe, and has toured extensively across regional Australia. Her performances have been reviewed as “virtuosic” and “infinitely expressive”. She has appeared with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Haydn Ensemble, Ironwood, Pinchgut Opera, Van Diemen’s Band and New Vintage Baroque.

A co-founder of the award-winning Bowerbird Collective, Simone’s compositions have been performed across the world, and her artistic creations described as “stunning”. Recent productions include Where Song Began, Invisible Connections, and the World Migratory Bird Day Virtual Choir. Simone was commissioned by the Art Gallery of South Australia to create the soundscape for ‘Clarice Beckett – The Present Moment’, an acclaimed retrospective of one of Australia’s greatest artists, in early 2021.

With an international performance and production career, Anthony Albrecht has developed a reputation as an impresario of world-class events characterised by generosity, outreach and connection to issues of social justice, conservation and sustainability. He is co-founder and CEO of the Bowerbird Collective, an organisation devoted to forging stronger connections to the natural world. With a passion for making classical music accessible and relevant in the 21st century, cellist Anthony Albrecht began producing concerts shortly after graduating from The Juilliard School in 2014. Committed to musical outreach, Anthony has undertaken a self-managed solo tour of over 80 concerts in regional Australia called ‘Bach to the Bush’. He is founder and director of the Lapwing Music Festival in the UK

A musician known for his “dramatic flair” and “fluent and virtuosic” performances (Seen and Heard International, Sydney Morning Herald), he has appeared with Pinchgut Opera, Van Diemen's Band, the Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra, the Australian Haydn Ensemble, New Vintage Baroque (NYC) and Il Pomo d’Oro. Recent solo engagements include an appearance in the woods of East Sussex as a guest of Sam Lee’s ‘Singing with Nightingales’ project, a recital at the Handel and Hendrix House in London, a performance of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D at the Newcastle Music Festival and as concerto soloist with the Adelaide Baroque Orchestra.

Brisbane-born violist Katie Yap started out her musical life playing the violin, but after being converted by her high school teacher Loreta Fin, has officially joined the dark side and hasn’t looked back since!

Now based in Melbourne, she performs at the highest level in modern and historically-informed ensembles including the Australian World Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Van Diemen’s Band, and Academy of Ancient Music (UK). Her greatest love is chamber music, and she’s a founding member of Wattleseed Ensemble, the Chrysalis Harp Trio, and prog-baroque quartet Croissants & Whiskey.

She is artistic director of Wattleseed Ensemble, and 3MBS’s women-in-music festival Music, She Wrote. Winner of the 2022 Freedman Classical Fellowship, her project explores the nexus of folk, baroque, and new music styles, and a life-long fascination with improvisation.

Emily Sheppard is a Tasmanian violinist, violist, improviser and composer who is inspired by unconventional and resonant places and spaces, as well as science and the environment. Trained at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne, she is in the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Van Diemen’s Band and has collaborated with Paul Kelly, Katie Noonan, DJ Spooky and Michael Kieran Harvey.

Emily spent four weeks in residency in Tasmanian caves in 2017, supported by Arts Tasmania funding. Throughout this period she composed several new works for solo viola/violin, incorporating extended techniques such as alternative tunings, prepared violin and singing while playing. She has curated performances in Hastings Cave, Marakoopa Cave and Mt Wellington/kunanyi observation shelter, supported by Arts Tasmania and Hobart City Council grants.

Emily has toured Europe with the Australian Youth Orchestra, and has played at festivals all over Australia, including Mona Foma, Dark Mofo, Ten Days on the Island, Darwin Festival, Brisbane Festival, Melbourne Festival, Canberra International Music Festival, Cygnet Folk Festival, Fractangular and A Festival Called Panama.

Amongst the exciting emergence of a new generation of classical musicians, guitarist Andrew Blanch stands out. Armed with formidable talent, passion, and conviction, Andrew has carved out his own path to much acclaim. His independently-released album ‘Spanish Guitar Music’ (2015) and accompanying self-managed tour marked the auspicious beginnings to an active and multifaceted musical career today.

As a performer Andrew’s musical vision is broad and ambitious: an acclaimed soloist of traditional and contemporary repertoire, a key collaborator in eclectic ensembles small and large, an active commissioner of new works and an arranger himself, and noted both for his personal connection with the general public and his appeal to critics alike with a multitude of competition prizes and critical accolades, including winning the Adelaide International Guitar Competition in 2019.

Yyan Ng is a multi-instrumentalist, improviser, composer, collaborator. Yyan sings and plays acoustic guitar, wadaiko (taiko drums), Shakuhachi, and various stringed, percussion and woodwind instruments. He leads a few contemporary bands and the Launceston Taiko group Taiko Oni Jima, and has been involved in various projects as a guitarist and percussionists.

He is core member of chamber folk trio Where Water Meets, and plays with as a Wadaiko and shakuhachi duo with Brian Ritchie, with contemporary folk trio with Skyglass (Anne Norman and Emily Sheppard), and with five piece experimental jazz band Late Hall.  He has led and directed, and played in projects for MONA FOMA, Ten days on the island, Dark MOFO, Cygnet Folk Festival, Junction Arts Festival. He has also played all over Australia in festivals such as Woodford folk festival, National folk festival, Falls Festival, Australian Wooden Boat Festival, Taste of Tasmania, Festivale etc.