GOLDNER STRING QUARTET

The Quartet comprises of Dene Olding, Dimity Hall, Irina Morozova and Julian Smiles. The Quartet is named after Richard Goldner, founder of Musica Viva Australia. Launched in 1995 and still retaining all founding members, the musicians are well known to Australian and international audiences through their performances and recordings and for their concurrent membership of the Australia Ensemble at UNSW. All members have occupied principal positions in organisations such as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Australian Chamber Orchestra. 

Unanimous audience and critical acclaim following their London debut at Wigmore Hall in 1997 ensured the Goldner Quartet’s invitations to prestigious UK and European festivals. Performances in the USA and throughout Asia have followed, in addition to several tours of New Zealand. 

DENE OLDING

Dene Olding is recognised as one of Australia’s most outstanding violinists. He is currently first violinist for the Goldner String Quartet and the Australia Ensemble (resident at the University of New South Wales) and Concertmaster Emeritus of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

As a soloist he has worked with all of the Australian Symphony and Chamber Orchestras in a range of repertoire. He has performed over forty concertos and worked with some of the world’s leading conductors including Edo de Waart, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Stuart Challender, Sir Charles Mackerras, Jorge Mester, Gunther Herbig, Werner Andreas Albert, David Porcelijn and Vladimir Ashkenazy. He gave the Australian premiere performance of Lutoslawski’s Chain 2 with the composer conducting, Elliott Carter’s Violin Concerto and the Violin Concerto of Philip Glass. In addition, he has performed world premieres of violin concertos by Carl Vine, Ross Edwards , Bozidar Kos and the Double Concerto for violin and viola by Richard Mills, written for himself and his wife, Irina Morozova.

Dene attended the Juilliard School In New York from the age of fourteen as a scholarship student of Ivan Galamian and Margaret Pardee. He graduated in 1978 with the Master of Music Degree and was awarded the Morris Loeb Prize. Other studies included master classes with Nathan Milstein and further lessons with Herman Krebbers and Gyorgy Pauk. In 1985, he was awarded the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship to further his musical studies and during that year, became a Laureate of the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Violin Competition.

Andrea Lam

Pronounced a "real talent" by the Wall Street Journal, Australian pianist Andrea Lam performs with orchestras and leading conductors in Australasia, Japan, China and the United States, including the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and all major Australian symphony orchestras. Recently returned after two decades in New York, Andrea has played from New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to the Sydney Opera House, she has played for Sydney Festival, Musica Viva’s Huntington Festival (Australia), Orford Festival (Canada), and Chelsea Music Festival (USA) with works from Bach, Schumann and Chopin to Aaron Jay Kernis, Liliya Ugay, and Nigel Westlake. 

A keen chamber musician, Andrea was pianist of New York’s acclaimed Claremont Trio from 2010 - 2020. Other recent engagements include New York’s Chelsea Music Festival, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, as soloist with the Melbourne and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, and Australian Youth Orchestra, with tenor Andrew Goodwin, and as guest of the Australian String Quartet at Dunkeld Festival.

Fremantle to Brisbane