Genevieve Lacey

The extraordinary recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey has won the new Music Council of Australia/ Freedman Foundation Fellowship in classical music.

The Fellowship has been established to support top Australian musicians up to 35 years of age to take their next career step -- generally envisaged to be a move towards an international career. This certainly is Genevieve Lacey's objective. She tours Europe as soloist with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Andreas Scholl later this year. She will take the opportunity to invite reviewers and potential presenters and lay the basis for securing future European engagements.

Genevieve will attempt something unusual: to build an international performing career while retaining Australia as home base. This is especially difficult in the early stages because the artist needs to be able to take up engagements at short notice. The Fellowship funds will be used partly to get Ms Lacey to Europe quickly to take advantage of such opportunities.

While the recorder's natural home is with the early repertoire, Genevieve plans a much more eclectic offering. She has a special interest in new music, not least because Australia has important composers such as Ian Shanahan and Benjamin Thorne writing expertly for the instrument. Their music will gain more international exposure through Genevieve's performances.

It is customary to the point of cliché for juries to declare difficulty in choosing between candidates for awards. This was however truthfully the case for the MCA/Freedman Fellowship. The jury was confident that any of the three finalists has a very good chance at achieving an international career.

Young conductor Simon Hewett is conducting the super-virtuosic modernist Elision ensemble in some extremely prestigious engagements on its forthcoming European tour of a Lisa Lim opera, Moon Spirit Feasting. On that account alone, he clearly has already achieved a remarkable success for his 25 years. Simon too plans to use the tour to begin to establish himself with the profession in Europe. Rather than follow the well worn path of serving as repetiteur in German opera houses and hoping that the scheduled conductors fall ill, Simon will specialise in performing new music and, perhaps, at some future date, extend into the mainstream repertoire.

Unfortunately, his success probably would require Simon to live in Europe where most of the work is. The extended rehearsal periods for new music pretty much preclude the usual flying visit mode of mainstream conductors.

Clarinettist Paul Dean already has received many invitations to perform overseas, and has independently planned a solo tour extending through the USA and to Germany and Beijing. The jury believes Paul's performances are in the same league as the top established international clarinet soloists. Of course, turning that ability into a professional success is an entire additional project. Dean also is a champion of Australian composition, and would use the tour to perform the Australian clarinet repertoire and seek additional commissions. He will also pursue engagements for his Brisbane-based Southern Cross ensemble. He hopes that his own success will lay down a successful path which other Australian performers might follow.

It is curious that each of the three contenders has chosen a difficult career path. The top level opportunities for recorder or clarinet players or conductors of new music are very restricted, and the competition fierce.

All three finalists deserve every support. While alas, only one could be supported under this program, Music Council personnel will watch for opportunities for all.

The MCA / Freedman Foundation Fellowship is established through the generosity of Laurence and Kathy Freedman and designed and managed by the Music Council of Australia. The Music Council will assist the winners throughout the Fellowship period.

A Jazz Fellowship will follow in August. There will be a concert of the finalists at The Studio of Sydney Opera House at 8pm on Tuesday August 21. The finalists are Andrea Keller, pianist, and Jamie Oehlers, saxophonist, both from Melbourne, and Matt McMahon, pianist, and Phil Slater, trumpet player, both from Sydney. Jury members are Dale Barlow, Mike Nock and Jonathan Zwartz.