Ensemble

The Soundstream Collective is the University of Adelaide’s new music Ensemble-in-Residence, auspiced through the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice. The Collective is committed to creating a vibrant culture of new music through artistic excellence, innovative programming, composer collaborations, the commissioning of new works and community participation.

Soundstream Collective embraces the performance, practice and reception of new music at all levels of engagement.

Soundstream Collective comprises a core group of skilled and dedicated musicians, under its Artistic Director (Gabriella Smart), complemented by other musicians to suit the demands of the musical program being offered. The core members of the ensemble are:

Gabriella Smart (B.A., M.Mus.) is a concert pianist, educator and artistic director of the Soundstream Collective.

She has performed as a soloist in the International Melbourne Festival and the Adelaide Festival Centre’s OzAsia Festival, in Europe at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and in China at the Forbidden Palace in Beijing and the Shanghai Conservatory.

Gabriella was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2010, and was the recipient of a Helpmann Award in 2009. She is artistic director of the Soundstream: Adelaide New Music Festival, which received a Ruby Award for Best Event in South Australia in 2009.Gabriella studied with Eleonora Sivan, concert pianist and pedagogue whose school is recognised internationally. She teaches piano part time at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, and records regularly for ABC Classic FM.

John Addison graduated with Honours from the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music in 1990. Scholarships from Arts Tasmania and the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Award enabled him to travel to The Netherlands where studied with Herre-Jan Stegenga at the Rotterdam Conservatorium. A sought-after interpreter of contemporary music, John performs with the country’s leading new music ensembles and is a featured artist in festivals around the world. He is currently enrolled in the Doctor of Musical Arts program at Griffith University and performs on an instrument made by David Heckenberg (2010).

Elizabeth Layton has had a distinguished career as soloist and chamber music player working with some of Britain’s finest ensembles and orchestras.

Born in London and a graduate of the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Juilliard School in New York, she is a former member of the Nash Ensemble. Elizabeth has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Philharmonia, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and London Mozart Players, as well as the Academy of St Martin in the Fields of which she was Associate Leader.

She has performed and broadcast chamber music worldwide and made chamber music recordings for labels including DG, Hyperion, Chandos, BIS and Collins Classics. From 1999 – 2010 Elizabeth Layton was Leader of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with whom she broadcast as soloist with conductors including Osmo Vanska, Ilan Volkov, Jerzy Maksymiuk and Martyn Brabbins. She regularly directed the orchestra, broadcasting for the BBC with soloists such as Michael Collins, Alison Balsom and Martin Roscoe.

Elizabeth Layton has been a Professor of Violin at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, UK.

Peter Handsworth completed an Honours degree in Music performance before pursuing two postgraduate performance diplomas at the renowned Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, working intensively with the Wolfgang Meyer (Clarinet) and Peter Eötvös (Modern Music). He has a long-standing commitment to commissioning, performing and recording contemporary music world-wide. He has been invited to perform at pre-eminent international festivals, including Lockenhaus and Schleswig Holstein. Peter has recorded Berio’s Sequenza IX, and most recently completed a studio recording of Australian music for Bavarian Radio and two collaborative new music CD’s entitled, Bridges and Conversations.

Martin Phillipson completed an M.Mus. in Australia. He was a founding member of the Australian Brass Quintet, and a member of the Sydney Brass Ensemble. In 1997 he studied with Max Sommerhalder at the Detmold Hochshule fur Musik, where he was awarded a Postgraduate Diploma.

In 2000 Martin was Principal Trumpet with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and in 2001, with the Malaysian Philharmonic. Since 2002, Martin has been Associate Principal Trumpet of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and is Guest Principal with the Queensland and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras.

Andrew Wiering is the leader of the Vortex Percussion Ensemble, brought into existence for Adelaide-based percussionists to perform chamber music together, both as an ensemble of percussion instruments and in combination with other instrumentalists and voices.

Their recent activities include a live radio broadcast of Antheil’s Ballet Mecanique for ABC Classic FM, and an ongoing recording project featuring percussion trio and quartet repertoire with a focus on Japanese composers. The membership of the ensemble is flexible depending on the requirements of the repertoire. The core members are: Ryan Simm, Jamie Adam, Ryan Harrison and Andrew Wiering.