David Macfarlane

David Macfarlane gained a Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance and Musicology from the University of Sydney where he was the Organ Scholar.  In 1986 he traveled to Vienna to study further where he played in concerts and recitals as soloist and continuo player on organ and harpsichord.  He performed regularly in a number of concert series, including the Mariazell Sommerkonzerte, the Sittendorfer Sommerkonzerte, the Karlskirche concert series and the Wiener Orgel Konzerte.  In 1988 he organized a series of five Australian Bicentennial Concerts in Vienna and in 1992 he was awarded the Performance Diploma.
David is currently the Director of Music, All Saints St Kilda, organist at Newman College, University of Melbourne and is in high demand as a freelance musician throughout Australia.

Gary Ekkel

Gary Ekkel is a leading Australian interpreter of choral and Early Music.  He commenced his musical studies on the modern flute, completing his L.Mus.A in 1979, but turned to baroque flute as his main focus in 1983.  His interest in Early Music was already fostered at secondary school under the enthusiastic guidance of Hartley Newnham, and he subsequently took up studies on the baroque flute and recorder under Ruth Wilkinson and Hans-Diether Michatz at the University of Melbourne.  During 1986-87 he received a Netherlands Government Scholarship to continue his studies on baroque flute under Barthold Kuijken at the Royal Conservatorium in The Hague.  Since then, he has returned to Europe a number of times, performing on flute and baroque flute in Holland, England, Wales, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.   He was also a founding member of the Il Pastor Fido baroque ensemble and played with the ensemble for ten years.  He completed a Masters degree in Performance at the University of Melbourne in 1988 and a PhD in the analysis of Renaissance choral music at the same university in 1997.

Stephen Grant

Stephen Grant was born in Montreal, Canada. He studied organ and voice in Canada before moving to Germany in 1987 to begin singing professionally. There he established working relationships with some of Europe’s best-known early music ensembles - Sequentia, the Ferrara Ensemble, Ensemble Organum de Paris, The Huelgas Ensemble and others, concertising widely and making over twenty CD recordings.
Stephen's interest in varied repertoires has led him to perform a broad range of music, from the medieval repertoire and baroque opera (Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Telemann’s Pimpinone) to premieres of a number of contemporary works by Saariaho (Paris), Fritsch (Bonn), Staub (Göteborg and Saarbrücken), the Australian premiere of Jüdische Chronik, the Geminiani production of Viktor Ullmann’s Emperor of Atlantisas well as mainstream 19th and 20th century repertoire.
Stephen now lives in Melbourne, Australia, is Lecturer in Voice at the Victorian College of the Arts and teaches at Melbourne University and the Australian Catholic University. He has given master classes at Australia’s National Academy of Music and the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland and directs a number of vocal ensembles, including e21, and the university-based Early Voices.

John Griffiths

John Griffiths, Oficial de la Orden de Isabel la Católica BA PhD Monash
Professor of Music
Born in Melbourne, Australia, John completed a Bachelor of Arts at Monash in 1975 and PhD (Monash) in 1984. He also undertook Performance studies at Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basle), as well as in Germany and Spain. In 1993 he was made an Officer of the Order of Isabel la Católica for his contribution to Spanish culture. He has over 50 international publications on the vihuela and early Spanish instrumental music, and has also contributed articles to leading reference works such as The New Grove and Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. He is an internationally renowned performer of a variety of instruments including lute, vihuela, and baroque guitar and has published numerous solo and ensemble recordings. During 1997-1998 he was Visiting Professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He is currently completing a book on Spanish music during the reign of Philip II and conducting a large research project on lute music in Naples c.1600.

Rosemary Hodgson

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Rosemary Hodgson has lived and worked abroad, performing in Britain, Portugal, Sweden, Germany and Venezuela.
Since her return to Australia in 2000, Rosemary has been in constant demand. Her recent engagements include Richard Mill's opera Batavia with the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra, Monteverdi Vespers in the Melbourne Early Music Festival, Monteverdi Madrigals with e21, Backgammon Baroque Tasmanian tour, Bach St John's Passion with the Australian Baroque Ensemble, Vivaldi Vespers with The Choir of Newman College and guest soloist in the Palestrina Project's Victoria Requiem.
As a freelance musician, Rosemary balances accompanying, solo and continuo performances and teaching. She has appeared frequently on ABC television and radio, Channel Seven and 3MBS and is featured on La Compania's CD Music of the Spanish Renaissance (Move). Her debut solo recording, rosa, was released in March 2004.

George Liakatos

George Liakatos commenced studying a Bachelor of Arts degree in the social sciences at the University of Melbourne before concentrating on his singing.  He is an active member of e21, Past Echoes, Buxtehude Consort, Palestrina Project and e21. He also works with the acclaimed Sydney based vocal ensemble Cantillation. George has performed at most regional and Melbourne based festivals including the Castlemaine State Festival, the Antipodes Festival and the Melbourne International Festival for the Arts.
As soloist George has performed in many oratorios including the Australian premiere of Vivaldi’s  recently discovered Dixit Dominus,  Bach’s St.Mark Passion (Evangelist), the Messiah (Handel) with the Penrith Symphony Orchestra, Bach’s Magnificat  and Haydn’s Nelson Mass with the Australian Classical Players and Independent Classics and the Vespers of 1610 (Monteverdi) at the 2003 Australian Intervarsity Choral Festival in Canberra. His roles have included Il Muto (La Serva Padrona), Anthony (Sweeney Todd) and Tony (West Side Story).
In 2005 George joined the Sydney based Australian Brandenburg Choir in Handel’s Ode for
St. Cecilia and as soloist in the Noël! Noël! series. Recently he appeared as soloist in the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s Magnificent Mozart series performing in Mozart’s Coronation Mass at the City Recital Hall, Sydney.  Other 2006 engagements included the role of Vitaliano in Vivaldi’s Il Giustino for Melbourne Lyric Opera and performances of Cosi fan Tutti and Bach’s St. John Passion in the inaugural season for Victorian Opera.