Trombones

Ronald Prussing: Principal Trombone

Industry & Investment NSW Chair

Ronald Prussing graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1974. He began his studies as a pianist with trombone as a second instrument, but soon the trombone became his major study. One of his early teachers was Alan Mann, a long-time principal horn of the Sydney Symphony. He also studied with Geoffrey Bailey and Baden McCarron, a former Sydney Symphony trombonist.

In 1970, having studied the trombone for only 12 months, he was chosen to tour with the Australian Youth Orchestra to Japan for Expo ’70. He subsequently gained much experience playing in many orchestras as a casual musician, including the Sydney and Melbourne symphony orchestras.

In 1978 he was appointed Principal Trombone with the Sydney Elizabethan Orchestra (now the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra), a position he held for two years, at which time he was appointed Associate Principal Trombone with the Sydney Symphony. He was appointed Principal in 1986.

In 1983, he was the first Australian trombonist to be invited to present lectures and give recitals at the annual Seminar of the International Trombone Association, held in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ronald Prussing is a regular recitalist at trombone gatherings in Australia. He is a member of the Salvation Army, and has taken the Salvos’ Band on tours of the USA and Canada.

Scott Kinmont: Associate Principal Trombone

Scott Kinmont joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra when he was 20. Since his appointment to the orchestra, he has won two international solo competitions: the 1993 United Musical Instruments International trombone solo competition held in the United States, and the 1999 International Tubamania solo euphonium competition in Australia.

He was the recipient of the Fulbright Award for the Visual and Performing Arts in 2002, which enabled him to travel to the US to complete his Master’s degree and to appear as guest lecturer in euphonium at Northwestern University in Chicago.

Scott Kinmont has appeared as a soloist with a variety of ensembles including brass bands, jazz ensembles and orchestras. He has also appeared as a guest artist at many leading musical institutions and at many of Australia’s most important brass symposiums. In addition to his orchestral commitments, he is currently Lecturer in Trombone Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

He collaborates with young Australian composers and has premiered several pieces written for him including a euphonium concerto by Peter Keller premiered in Chicago in 2003, and Lee Bracegirdle’s Euphonium Concerto premiered with the SSO in 2008. He has also been a member of many of Australia’s leading ensembles, including the Canberra Trombone Quartet, which finished second at the International Brass Ensemble Competition held in the US in 1993.

Nick Byrne: rogenSi Chair

Born in Sydney, Nick Byrne completed his Bachelor’s degree at the Canberra School of Music in 1991. He subsequently undertook further postgraduate study with Charles Vernon at De-Paul University in Chicago. His other teachers have included Simone de Haan, Ian Perry, Ron Prussing, Arnold Jacobs and Michael Mulcahy.

Nick Byrne joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1996, prior to which he held the position of Solo Trombone with the Hofer Symphoniker in Germany. He has performed with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and in 1994 was chosen by Sir Georg Solti for his Carnegie Hall Festival Orchestra.

Nick Byrne has also performed with Summit Brass, Millar Brass, Chicago Symphony Lower Brass Ensemble, Canberra Trombone Quartet (prize winner at the UMI Chamber Music Competition in Arizona, 1993), and is a founding member of the Sydney Symphony Brass Ensemble.

He is also a recognised performer on the ophicleide (an early keyed tuba) and has performed with the SSO, Australian Chamber Orchestra, World Orchestra for Peace (Moscow and St Petersburg, 2003) and in solo recitals at the Melbourne International Festival of Brass (2003 and 2009).

In 2002, Nick Byrne was the recipient of a Churchill Fellowship which allowed him to undertake ophicleide studies in Lyon, France, and in 2006 he recorded the world’s first solo ophicleide recording Back from Oblivion.