Featuring music for Flute, Oboe and Piano by Cesar Franck, Hisatada Otaka, Madeleine Dring and John Peterson.
Performers: Tomomi Matsuo, Mark Xiao (Flute); Kate Mostert (Oboe) and Alan Hicks (Piano).
About the performers:
Mark Xiao has won numerous competitions and awards throughout Australia including the Leslie Barklamb Scholarships, the 3MBS Young Performer of the Year Award and the Australian Youth Classical Music Competition. In 2006, he was the winner of the Open Flute Competition at the Australian Flute Festival. Internationally, Mark was the recipient of the British Flute Society Award, the Zangger-Weber Stiftung and in 2012, he received the Third Prize and the Audience Prize at the August-Everding Music Competition in Munich, Germany.
At the age of 14, Mark was awarded a Licentiate Diploma with Distinction, making him the youngest flutist in Australia to have received the honour. He has since studied with such masters such as Virginia Taylor, Vernon Hill, Trevor Wye, Matthias Ziegler and Andrea Lieberknecht, accumulating a Bachelor of Music degree and three Master of Music degrees specialising in Performance, Soloist and Contemporary Music.
Mark was a guest member of the Tonhalle-Orchestra Zurich and has collaborated with several notable composers including Helmut Lachenmann, Beat Furrer, William Blank and Heinz Holliger; and conductors such as Kent Nagano, Lionel Bringuier, Roland Kluttig, Zsolt Nagy, David Zinman, Werner Ehrhardt, Douglas Boyd and Nello Santi. As a soloist, Mark has performed with the Bach Collegium München and the Filharmonie Hradec Králové.
Mark is now teaching and performing in Australia and is the National Sales Manager for Flutes & Flutists Pty Limited.
Tomomi Matsuo has been awarded several prizes throughout Japan both as a soloist and as a chamber musician, including the Gold Prize in the 26th All Japan Ensemble Contest and the 3rd Prize at the 58th Student Music Competition of Japan in Osaka. She has also been awarded prizes at the 19th Music Competition of Kanagawa in Japan and the 9th Biwako International Flute Competition.
Tomomi received her Bachelor of Arts degree at the prestigious Tokyo University of the Arts followed by a two-year residential course at Trevor Wye’s Flute Studio in the UK. She has two Master of Music degrees, specialising in Orchestral Performance and Soloist from the Zurich University of the Arts where she studied with Matthias Ziegler. She was also Professor Ziegler’s assistant teacher during her time there.
Tomomi is a regular assistant performer at Trevor Wye’s lectures in the UK, USA and Japan and in September 2011, she began performing with the Senzoku-gakuen New Philharmonic Orchestra. Tomomi has also been invited as a guest performer at the National Flute Association Convention, the British Flute Society Festival and the Australian Flute Festival. More recently, Tomomi has had several performances with the Philharmonia Zurich. Tomomi has collaborated with many world-renowned conductors including Kazuki Yamada, Nelo Santi, Fabio Luisi, Alain Altinoglu and Jun Marrkl and in 2015, she had the opportunity to collaborate with Toshio Hosokawa as a soloist for his work, Voyage V.
In 2017, Tomomi moved to Sydney and is teaching and performing regularly around Australia.
Kate Mostert is an up and coming young oboist from Sydney. She is currently in her fourth year of a Bachelor of Music (Performance) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, studying under Alexandre Oguey.
Kate has performed as principal oboe of the Sydney Youth Orchestra, Sydney Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra, Opera Orchestra and Wind Symphony, as well as the 2016 Australian International Symphony Orchestra Institute. This year, she was appointed principal cor anglais of the Australian Youth Orchestra and was selected to participate in AYO’s exclusive fellowship program with Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Kate also performs regularly with her award winning chamber ensemble, Quintet Vivo, and was recently awarded the Sydney Conservatorium Association Scholarship Award for an outstanding young woodwind player.
Alan Hicks is a graduate of Newcastle Conservatorium of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. He was appointed Junior Fellow in Accompaniment at the RNCM in 1992 and subsequently joined the staff as Accompanist and Tutor in Piano.
In the course of eight years as a freelance pianist in London, Alan appeared at major recital venues including the Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room and St John’s Smith Square. His CD recording with Kate Romano, 20th Century Music from the British Isles for clarinet and piano, was BBC Music Magazine’s Chamber Music Pick of the Month (Metier MSV CD92013). As pianist with the King Piano Trio he worked on Lord Menuhin’s Live Music Now! concert scheme and appeared at the 2000 Three Choirs Festival in Hereford. Alan was pianist with the London-based Australian contemporary music group the Bennelong Ensemble, appearing live on BBC Radio 3, at the Cheltenham Festival, and in concert tours of Italy and the UK.
Since his return to Australia, Alan has been appointed Vocal Coach and Accompanist at the ANU School of Music and was Assistant Musical Director, Repetiteur and Language Coach for their 2005 production of Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. He continues to be in demand as a recital partner for national and international instrumentalists and vocalists.