The Music Council of Australia and Freedman Foundation have announced the short list for the MCA/Freedman Fellowship for Classical Music for 2011. The winner will be announced on August 11, 2011. The finalists are:

• LINA ANDONOVSKA (Flute, Melbourne)
  Australian flautist Lina Andonovska divides her time between the UK and Australia, currently undertaking an Arts Skills and Development grant project funded by the Australian Council and the Ian Potter Foundation to study and perform in the UK. Lina was an Australian National Academy of Music scholarship holder in 2010, studying with Margaret Crawford. Prior to that, she attained a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours at the Australian National University in 2008. As a passionate performer of new music, Lina has worked with world-renowned composers Louis Andriessen, Brett Dean, Andrew Ford, Anthony Pateras and Larry Sitsky and is currently working with Australian-based emerging composers Lachlan Skipworth and Austin Buckett. In addition to an active chamber music and solo career, Lina Andonovska frequently plays with Australia’s major orchestras including the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria. In 2009, Lina held a fellowship with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the next year performed as Principal Piccolo with the Australian Youth Orchestra on their international tour. Lina has been the recipient of several scholarships and grants including an ArtStart grant from the Australia Council for the Arts, ArtsACT project grant and the Karmel Honours Scholarship. She has also won the ANU School of Music Chamber Music Competition.
  
  
• ZUBIN KANGA (Piano, Sydney)
  Zubin Kanga, has worked closely with many of the world’s leading composers including George Benjamin, Michael Finnissy, Howard Skempton, Beat Furrer and Liza Lim and performs with some of Australia’s leading new music ensembles including Ensemble Offspring and Halcyon as well as ensembles in Europe including the Kreutzer Quartet and the London Sinfonietta. A graduate of the University of Sydney and the Royal Academy of Music, he has performed at the ISCM World New Music Days (Sydney), the Merge Festival (Darwin), the Late Music Festival (York), the Southbank Messiaen Festival (London), the Aldeburgh Festival and the Many Hands Piano Festival (London).
  
  
• SIMON POWIS (Guitar, Sydney/New York)
  Simon Powis is a soloist, chamber musician and innovator. Growing up in Sydney, Powis took up the guitar at age eleven and has since gone on perform throughout Europe, Australia and the Americas. After completing his studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Raffaele Agostino and Greg Pikler, Powis travelled extensively throughout Europe to study with some of the world’s most renowned virtuosos. In 2006 Powis was invited to undertake a Masters of Music at Yale University on a full scholarship and upon completion this degree he was accepted as the first guitarist in over two decades to undertake doctoral studies at Yale. Powis has toured extensively as a soloist with performances in Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Centre (Washington D.C.), Australia House (London) and the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada). A strong passion for chamber music has resulted in international collaborations ranging from traditional groups such as the Modigliani String Quartet and Ian Swenson (violin) to less common performances with double bass, electronics and even the tuba. In the past year he’s collaborated with a variety of composers to premiere over thirty new works on the concert stage.
  
  
• EUGENE UGHETTI (Percussion, Melbourne)
  Eugene Ughetti is a Melbourne based percussionist, composer and artistic director of ‘Speak Percussion’. Having completed a degree with Honours in Classical Percussion at the Victorian College of the Arts, Eugene has performed throughout Europe, Asia, Canada, North America and Australia with a wide range of artists. He has appeared as a soloist with both the Melbourne Symphony and Victorian College of the Arts Orchestras, and performs as a guest with the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa (Japan), the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (Malaysia), the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra (Switzerland) and the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra (Japan). In 1998 he was an ABC Young Composer and ABC Young Artist. Eugene has instigated numerous International arts projects supporting Australian artists and has commissioned over forty new solo and ensemble works. He has worked under conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Peter Eötvös, James Levine, Stephan Asbury and Valery Gergiev, Eugene has lectured and hosted master classes in Japan, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, U.S.A, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Portugal and in various capital cities in Australia. He is currently a sessional staff member at the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne), conducts the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School Percussion Ensemble and is an academic lecturer at Monash University.

The judges for 2011 are three distinguished members of Australia’s classical music community: Timothy Constable (percussionist and Artistic Director of Synergy Percussion and the 2007 winner of the Freedman Classical Fellowship), Peter Czornyj (Director of Artistic Planning for the Sydney Symphony) and Gerard Willems (pianist and Associate Professor at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music).