Australian conductor Benjamin Northey is the Chief Conductor of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, Conductor in Residence of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Principal Guest Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In 2025 he was appointed Professor of Conducting at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Director of the Australian Conducting Academy. He has previously held the posts of Associate Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (2010-2019), Resident Guest Conductor of the Australia Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra (2002-2006) and Principal Guest Conductor of the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra (2007-2010).

Northey studied conducting at Finland's Sibelius Academy with Professors Leif Segerstam and Atso Almila after being accepted as the highest placed applicant in 2002. He completed his studies at the Stockholm Royal College of Music with Jorma Panula in 2006.

He previously studied conducting with John Hopkins OBE at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music from 2000-2002.

Northey appears regularly as a guest conductor with all major Australian symphony orchestras, Opera Australia (La bohème, Turandot, L'elisir d'amore, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Carmen), New Zealand Opera (Sweeney Todd), Victorian Opera (Candide, Into the Woods) and the State Opera South Australia (La sonnambula, L’elisir d’amore, Les contes d’Hoffmann).

His international appearances include concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, the Malaysian Philharmonic and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Northey has collaborated with a broad range of leading artists including Lang Lang, Pinchas Zukerman, Wynton Marsalis, Maxim Vengerov, Anne-Sofie von Otter, Julian Rachlin, Karen Gomyo, Piers Lane, Alban Gerhardt, Johannes Moser, William Barton, Lu Siquing, Amy Dickson, Slava Grigoryan, Marc-André Hamelin, James Morrison, Kurt Elling, Archie Roach, Ben Folds, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, Paul Grabowsky, Tim Minchin, kd Lang, Patti Austin, Kate Miller-Heidke, Megan Washington, Barry Humphries, Meow Meow and Tori Amos.

Northey is highly active in the performance and recording of new Australian orchestral music, having premiered dozens of major new works by Australian composers. He has previously been a board member of the Australian Music Centre.

An Aria Awards, Air Music Awards, and Art Music Awards winner, he was voted Limelight Magazine's Australian Artist of the Year in 2018. Northey's many recordings can be found on ABC Classics. In 2025, he conducts the Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland, Tasmanian and Christchurch Symphony Orchestras and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

Beatrice Colombis, 23, is an Italian-Australian violinist who is currently studying at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin with Professor Suyeon Kang. In 2024 she completed her Bachelor Degree of Music Performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music studying with Professor Goetz Richter. She began her studies at the age of 3 with renowned teacher of the Suzuki Method, Yasuki Nakamura, and continued her studies with ACO violinist Ilya Isakovich.

Beatrice is winner of the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in 2026. In 2024, she was a semi-finalist in the Max Rostal International Violin Competition in Germany and a finalist in the Tokyo Classic Violin Competition in Japan. She has been a prize winner in several Australian competitions, including second prize in the Dorcas McClean Travelling Scholarship (2025), first and audience prizes at the Kendall National Violin Competition (2023), the Roger Woodward AC OBE Award and runner up prize in the 2mbs Young Virtuoso Award (2024), Richard Mills first prize in the Melbourne Bach Competition (2021) and the Anne Kantor Award in the Great Romantics Competition (2024). In 2020, Beatrice, with her brother and cousins as the Cousin Quartet, won Musica Viva’s inaugural Strike A Chord national chamber music competition.

Beatrice has performed as a soloist in Australia with Concerto Arcana, Caesura Ensemble and the Sydney Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra.

Beatrice was selected as an Emerging Artist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 2023 and 2024. She has played casually with the ACO, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Karajan Akademie Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She was selected for the Gustav Mahler Academy in Bolzano in 2025/26.

Beatrice has travelled and performed with various string quartets, including as guest violinist with the Alma Moodie Quartet at Adelaide Festival in Ukaria. In 2024 her quartet Elvina gave their debut recital in Melbourne after returning from a residency in Munich with the Schumann Quartet. They also performed at the Craven Creek Chamber Music Festival in 2024 and the Orange Chamber Music Festival in 2025.

The first Australian to attend Germany's prestigious Kronberg Academy, where she studies with Prof. Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt and where she was recently awarded the 2025 Altkönigstift Prize, Melbourne-born cellist Charlotte Miles captivates with her ‘keen musical intelligence, assured technique and honeyed tone’ (Sydney Morning Herald).

Awarded over 100 Australian and international prizes, including at the 2024 ARD (Germany), 2018 Gisborne (New Zealand) and 2020 Anna Kull (Austria) competitions, in 2021 she won both the Concerto Competition and the Most Outstanding Recital Performance Prize at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM). The 2025 recipient of the Melbourne Prize for Music’s Professional Development Award, in 2019 Miles won the Australian National Young Virtuoso Award and was named the 3MBS Young Performer of the Year.

A passionate chamber musician, recent highlights include the Landshut (Germany), Oxford May (UK), Stamford (UK) and Haute-Provence (France) festivals, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music and the Cello Biënnale Amsterdam (Netherlands). She has toured with the Australian String Quartet and the Australian and Mahler Chamber Orchestras, and substitutes with the Berlin Philharmonic.

For the 2025/26 season, Miles is a laureate of the Gautier Capuçon Foundation, and tours with his cello ensemble, the Capucelli. She performs on a c. 1780 Joseph Hill cello kindly on loan from an Australian collection.

Melbourne-born pianist Dillon Chan, 14, studies with Ian Munro and receives artistic guidance from Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń. He receives chamber music coaching from Caroline Almonte at Melbourne Conservatorium’s Melbourne Young Chamber Music Academy and Rachel Atkinson at Camberwell Grammar School (CGS). A Year 9 CGS music scholar, his Kingussie Trio won the Strike a Chord National Chamber Music Competition’s First Prize in 2026 and Second Prize in 2025, as well as the 3MBS Radio Award in 2024.

Dillon achieved LMusA with Distinction at 10. He won the Polish Music Competition Australia (2021), the Musical Society of Victoria’s Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial Award (2024), and Steinway Youth Piano Competition Australia overall (2022).

Dillon won 1st Prize at the 29th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition for Children and Youth (Poland). The youngest finalist at the 19th Ettlingen International Competition (Germany), he received 4th Prize and a Special Commendation for Young Talent. In 2025, he won 1st Prize at the 4th Jeune Chopin Competition (Switzerland), jury chaired by Martha Argerich, leading to sponsored recitals in Lausanne alongside Argerich and at Chopin’s birthplace in Żelazowa Wola.

Dillon made his orchestral debut at 9 and worked with Muhai Tang as pianist and Graham Abbott as organist. A Young Ambassador of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, he performed for Lang Lang after a Melbourne recital.

This year, Dillon performed Chopin Concerto No.1 with Preston Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Orchestra and Queensland Symphony Orchestra under Alan Buribayev, and won the Young Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition and 37th Preston Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerto Competition.