Christine Bishop Chair

Timothy Constable is an award-winning percussionist and composer, and has been a member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra since 2014. A compelling, creative and sensitive performer, he has performed as concerto and chamber music soloist at most of the Australian classical music festivals, as well as in New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, UK, Ireland, Senegal, USA, China, Korea, Nepal and South-East Asia.

He was the artistic director of Synergy Percussion between 2009 and 2017, during which time the group undertook some of its most ambitious work, including the 40th anniversary season in 2014, and extensive collaboration with renowned ensemble Noreum Machi (South Korea), commissions of music by Steve Reich and Anthony Pateras, several recordings and the video project 40under40.

His commissions have include compositions for Omer Backley-Astrachan (Maholohet Festival, Israel) and Orava String Quartet (Australian Festival of Chamber Music), as well as Cinemusica (Australian Chamber Orchestra), Ordinary Time and Spirals (Southern Cross Soloists), and numerous works for Noreum Machi, Synergy Percussion and Taikoz. Contemporary dance score credits include Meryl Tankard, Shaun Parker, Legs on the Wall and Dance Makers Collective.

He is committed to both new and ancient music, with a large body of world and Australasian premieres to his name, including Steve Reich’s Mallet Quartet, György Ligeti’s Síppal, Dobbal, Nádihegedüvel (With Pipes, Drums and Fiddles), Anthony Pateras’ Beauty Will Be Amnesiac Or Will Not Be At All and Flesh and Ghost, and music by Simon Holt, Lisa Lim, Arvo Pärt and Gerard Brophy among others. In the realm of ancient music, he has studied with Senegalese master drummer Aly N’Dyiaye Rose and Korean Jangoo with Kim Yeong-Taek and Kim Chong-Hee.

Timothy Constable is a Freedman music fellow, an Elizabethan Theatre Trust scholar, a university medallist of Newcastle University, and a graduate of the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.

Anne Arcus Chair

David Elton joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as Principal Trumpet in 2012, having previously held principal trumpet positions with the West Australian and Adelaide symphony orchestras. He has performed and toured as a guest principal with orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He has also performed on several occasions with the Australian World Orchestra.

As a soloist, he has performed concertos with the ACO and the Sydney, Adelaide, West Australian and Canberra symphony orchestras, including, with the WASO, the premiere of James Ledger’s Trumpet Concerto, which was written for him. As a chamber musician, he is a member of the Australian Brass Quintet and has participated in many chamber music festivals including the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville. He has also toured in Germany with World Brass and Mahler Chamber Brass.

Raised in Sydney, David Elton began studying trumpet at the age of nine, and became a student of Paul Goodchild on reaching high school. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Queensland Conservatorium (where he studied with Yoram Levy), and a Master’s degree from Northwestern University in Illinois (studying with Charles Geyer and Barbara Butler).

David Elton is on the Brass faculty at the Australian National Academy of Music. He was formerly Head of Brass at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and a guest faculty member at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore.