Originally from Wollongong, Sophie Cole began playing the violin at the age of three. She studied at the Wollongong Conservatorium of Music and made her solo debut with Tommy Tycho's International Orchestra, before completing her Bachelor of Music degree at the Canberra School of Music, where she studied with Miwako Abe. In the final year of her studies she was appointed to a position in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, which she held for three years. While in Melbourne Sophie Cole appeared as soloist with several orchestras and performed the Australian premiere of Roger Smalley's Konzertstück for violin and orchestra. She subsequently established a successful freelance career in London, performing with most of the city's major orchestras, and has toured extensively though Europe and the United States.

Sophie Cole moved to Sydney in 2001, dividing her time between performances with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra in addition to freelance performances. With the ACO she has toured Australia several times, as well as Europe and Japan.

While in London she became involved with contemporary music groups such as Sinfonia 21 and the Bennelong Ensemble, and is also active in the Sydney contemporary music scene, performing regularly with Ensemble Offspring, Halcyon, and Sonic Art Ensemble.

Dylan Holly is a double bass player whose interests encompass classical, jazz, avant-garde, and folk music.

Born in Arizona, Holly began studying double bass at the age of 15. He attended the Tucson Jazz Institute while in high school before being accepted into Northern Arizona University, studying classical and jazz side by side with Chris Finet. While at NAU Holly won that university’s concerto competition for his performance of Giovanni Bottesini’s Bass Concerto No.2, with the prize of performing the concerto with an orchestra.

Following his graduation from Arizona, Holly continued his studies at Manhattan School of Music with Jeremy McCoy, where he graduated with a Master’s degree in Classical Double Bass.

Holly has performed with orchestras including the San Diego Symphony, Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra, Harlem Chamber Players and Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra. He recorded César Franck’s Violin Sonata as part of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s mentorship program.

A sought-after jazz musician, Holly has appeared on numerous recordings dating from his time in New York City. He most recently performed with the Hugh Masekela Scholars band as part of the 2023 Jazz Education Network Conference. Holly is also a folk singer, songwriter, and harmonicist, and has released two albums of his own songs including Day in the Life of a Fool (2022).

Dylan Holly won a position in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s double bass section in 2022.

Jaan Pallandi began playing the double bass at the age of 11, initially studying with Nicole Murray-Prior and later with Alex Henery, continuing his studies at the Sydney Conservatorium on the Corinna d’Hage String Scholarship. While there he was awarded the Frank Albert Prize for Music, twice won the University of Sydney Academic Merit Prize, and was the winner of the string unit concerto competition performing Tubin’s Double Bass Concerto.

During his studies, he worked with the Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmanian symphony orchestras, and at the end of his second year won a permanent position in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra bass section. He has also performed with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Vebrugghen Ensemble, Australian Haydn Ensemble and Omega Ensemble, as well as appearing on the Omega Ensemble’s debut album.

Jaan Pallandi performed with the Sydney Chamber Opera for the premiere of Eliot Gyger’s Fly Away Peter and for performances of Pascal Dusapin’s Passion at the 2016 Sydney Festival. He was named a 2018 Emerging Artist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and has performed at the Canberra International Music Festival. He has also taught privately and at various schools, and conducted tutorials for the Sydney Youth Orchestras, Performing Arts Unit and the Border Music Camp.

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.

I Kallinikos Chair

Rebecca Lagos began her musical studies on the piano and later studied percussion with Richard Miller. She gained her Bachelor's degree from Indiana University, Bloomington, under the tutelage of George Gaber, and on her return to Australia she worked with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra as Acting Principal Timpani, before taking up the position of Principal Timpani with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. In 1987 she was appointed to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as a member of the percussion section.

That same year, she joined Sydney-based percussion ensemble Synergy. Over the next decade she worked with musicians including Trilok Gurtu, Evelyn Glennie, Dave Samuels, David Jones, Mike Nock, and Kazue Sawai. Synergy has premiered and recorded works by numerous Australian composers, and has toured Australia, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region (including performances at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, where they gave a private performance for Toru Takemitsu of his percussion trio, Rain Tree). She has toured Australia and the Asia-Pacific region with Synergy and the Sydney Dance Company for their Synergy With Synergy collaboration. The group has also recorded concertos for percussion ensemble by Carl Vine and Toru Takemitsu with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Rebecca Lagos has performed with the Seymour Group, Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Australia Ensemble, Taikoz and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, (including a performance of Messiaen's From the Canyons to the Stars, in the presence of the composer).

In 2006, she performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of Nigel Westlake's percussion concerto, When the Clock Strikes Me, and was subsequently awarded the prize for Best Performance of an Australian Composition at the APRA 2007 Classical Music Awards. She is also the resident cimbalom player for the SSO.

Rebecca Lagos was appointed to the position of Principal Percussion with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2006.

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.

Louisic started learning the harp and the piano in her hometown Bordeaux, France. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Hamburg in the class of Xavier de Maistre, and her Master’s in Würzburg in the class of Andreas Mildner. She also holds a Master’s degree in Chamber Music from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg.

During her studies she joined the association Live Music Now, founded by Yehudi Menuhin, through which she gave a lot of solo and duo concerts at diverse venues. She also received scholarships from the Oscar and Vera Stiftung and the Deutschland Stipendium.

Louisic was most recently Principal Harp of the Warsaw Philharmonic, and was for many years the academician at Hamburg State Opera under conductor Kent Nagano, where she played opera, ballet and symphony concerts.

Louisic has performed with orchestras across Europe, including Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) in Berlin, Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Deutsches Nationaltheater, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Bremer Philharmoniker in Bremen, the Sinfonieorchester St.Gallen (Switzerland) and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.

Alongside her experience as an orchestra musician, Louisic has also been teaching her instrument for many years. She loves playing chamber music and has played in a lot of different formations, including a number of ensembles dedicated to contemporary and experimental music.