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Johanna Selleck

The Selleck Ensemble have been performing together since 2004, focusing on the compositions of their conductor and director, Johanna Selleck. The ensemble comprises some of Australia's foremost performers, all of whom have performed with Australia's leading orchestras as well as international ensembles.

Violinist Aaron Barnden has performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia of Melbourne, Geminiani, the Australian Youth Orchestra and the Cologne Chamber Ensemble and was featured on the ABC's "Young Australia" program.

Barbara Hornung, on viola, has performed with the South Australian State Opera, the Adelaide Symphony, the Australian Pops Orchestra and the Haag Residentie Orchestra. Soprano Judith Dodsworth has worked with groups such as the Arnold Schönberg Choir, Concentus Vocalis Wien and NeuOper Wien, has performed in festivals throughout Europe and Asia, working with conductors such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Countertenor and pianist Dean Sky-Lucas is a member of the renown Choir of Newman College and Ensemble Troika and was a 2006 semi-finalist in the Mietta Song Recital Award. The Selleck Ensemble also features shakuhachi player Andrew MacGregor, who performs regularly throughout Australia, Japan, Europe and America.

In 2003 MacGregor was a finalist in the All-Japan National Music Competition. Currently resident in Australia, Iranian-born Qmars Piraglu is a virtuoso on the santur. He studied in Iran under the master santur-player, Faramarz Payvar, and regularly performs Payvar's own compositions in addition to traditional Persian music and his own improvised compositions. He has worked and studied in Turkey, Belgium and Sweden and is currently completing a PhD in ethnomusicology at Monash University.

Pianist and composer Natasha Wagner combines influences from her native Kazakhstan with her Australian heritage and her love of nature in her compositions. In April 2006 she was a featured composer in the Two Fires Festival in Braidwood, NSW, which celebrated the life and work of Australian poet Judith Wright.

Selleck is a composer, flautist and writer. She teaches at Melbourne University and the Victorian College of the Arts, works at the Centre for Studies in Australian Music and is currently completing a PhD in composition. She has composed a wide range of chamber, orchestral and electronic works. Her works have been performed by the Queensland, Tasmanian and Melbourne Symphony orchestras. She performed the solo part of her flute concerto Unspoken Dialogues with the Melbourne Symphony in a recording at the Iwaki Auditorium in 2003. Commissions have included works for Ensemble Zauberflöte, Melbourne Grammar, Melbourne University, the Cairnmillar Institute, Melbourne Youth Music, Astra and the Port Fairy Spring Festival. Her first opera, The Quickening, received its premiere at the Port Fairy Festival in October 1998 and was published by the Centre for Studies in Australian Music in 2001. Her piano quartet Looking Back was selected for performance at Maltese Australian Culture Week in Malta in January 2004. She has published articles and reviews in the ABC's Limelight magazine, Cambridge Scholars Press and the Australasian Musicolgical Research Journal. Her compositions have been published by Allans and Reed Music and recorded by Move Records. Her works have been broadcast on the ABC, 3MBS and 3PBS. In 1990 Selleck was awarded the Percy Grainger Prize for Composition and in 2006 she was awarded First Prize in the 2006 Albert H. Maggs Composition Award.

MP3 | WMV Video

Johanna Selleck May 2006

1) Movements 2 and 3 - "Summer" and "Autumn" - from the song cycle "Becoming" by Johanna Selleck: Performers: Andrew MacGregor (shakuhachi), Dean Sky-Lucas (counter-tenor), Judith Dodsworth (soprano), Jerzy Kowalski (bass), Aaron Barnden (violin), David Osborne (violin), Barbara Hornung (viola), Caerwen Martin (cello)

2) "Turtle Dreaming" by Natalya Vagner Johanna Selleck (flute), Barbara Hornung (viola), Jacinta Dennett (harp)

3) "Parnian" by Faramarz Payvar Qmars Piraglu (santur), Pooya Mehman Pazir (tar)

4) "In Memory" by Qmars Piraglu Qmars Piraglu (santur)

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