Composers & Soloists
Robyn Brookfield & Julie Stern Soloists
The Strings at St Albans concert for the community this year will feature Julie Stern and Robyn Brookfield, who will play the Andante movement from the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola in E-flat major, K364, accompanied by the workshop orchestra.
Since retiring from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Robyn (viola) and Julie (first violin) have told the story of their lives in music, illustrated with arrangements for music from Bach to the Beatles. As “Two Highly Strung Ladies” they regularly play at a range of venues across Sydney.
Read more about these two remarkable musicians under the Tutors section.
David Hines Composer
This is the third year that we will have the opportunity to play one of David's compositions. In 2023 David composed a piece specially for this workshop, entitled Sunrise at St Albans. This year David is composing a piece entitled Resilience, in recognition of the devastation caused by the recent floods across the country, and the long process of recovery by local communities, such as St Albans.
David began his musical journey at age 5 when he started studying the violin. He became passionate about the instrument achieving AMEB Grade 7 in 1978, the highest grade then possible. David still plays today and regularly performs with a number of string groups and orchestras. Also proficient on guitar, drums and keyboards David was a member of several bands playing on the Sydney pub circuit in the 1980s. David has written a wide variety of music including theatre music, TV commercials and a full length stage musical “Class of 77”.
Kaela Phillips Harpist
Every year we invite a talented musician to play a concerto with the orchestra. In 2023 Kaela Phillips played a harp solo with the orchestra. This segment has become a highlight in the concert for the community, which takes place on Saturday evening.
Although primarily a classical harpist, Kaela performs a variety of styles, including jazz, modern, contemporary and folk. Having studied the harp for nearly 17 years, Kaela has recently completed her Masters in Harp at the Sydney Conservatorium.
Kaela plays a full concert harp. In addition to solo concerts, her recent performances with orchestras include harp solos in Stravinsky’s Firebird, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Respighi’s Pines of Rome and Puccini’s La Bohѐme.
Kaela is at the beginning of her concert career and we are very lucky to be able to invite her to play with the orchestra at this year’s Strings at St Albans workshop and community concert. She will also be conducting some introductory workshops for local children and other interested potential harpists from the local community during the weekend.
Emma Greenhill Composer
In 2023 Emma Greenhill composed a piece especially for Strings at St Albans.
Emma is an award winning Australian composer, arranger, producer and violinist who specialises in screen music, concert music, orchestration and string recording. Emma completed a Bachelor of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium in 2017. In 2021, she won the APRA AMPCOS Madeby composition prize, the 2022 Young Composer Award and the 2017 Watermark composition prize.
Emma's work has been commissioned by director Rhys Day, ANAM, PLC, Trinity Grammar School, Karen North, AMEB, Damien Leith, James Blackford, and several times by Karen Carey. She has arranged and recorded music for The Voice Australia, The ARIA awards, The AACTA awards, Channel 7, Guy Sebastian's 2022 national tour, Rai Thistlethwayte (Thirsty Merc), Steve Balbi (Noiseworks) and recently arranged a full orchestral show of Roy Orbison songs performed by singer Damien Leith, which has been performed at Hamer Hall Melbourne, Qpac Brisbane, with performances at the State Theatre and several other venues later in the year.
Emma has more recently been working as a freelance composer for the advertising production house "Heckler Sound" and is currently working on a commission for One Music in collaboration with The Royal Academy of Dance as well as a new string quartet for Phoenix Collective