Musica Viva Announces Its Newest FutureMakers
Violinist Harry Ward and chamber music ensemble Partridge String Quartet are the Musica Viva Australia FutureMakers for 2020-2021.
This two-year, part-time initiative in leadership was launched by Music Viva in 2015, and aims to discover and enable brilliant early career artists to become Australia’s musical leaders of tomorrow offering artists a comprehensive professional development curriculum focused on strengthening their entrepreneurial capabilities, nurturing artistic leadership and shaping the sector’s future.
‘FutureMakers is a bridge between how we think about music today and how we’re likely to program and perform it tomorrow,’ explains Musica Viva’s Artistic Director Paul Kildea. ‘We focus on a handful of young Australian musicians who possess outstanding imagination, creativity, and peer recognition and respect.’
Harry Ward is an accomplished violinist, already in demand as a soloist, concertmaster and chamber musician for performances in Australia and internationally. A winner of the Australian National Youth Concerto Competition, Harry has also won the award for the Best Performance of Commissioned Work at the Michael Hill International Violin Competition and has been a finalist in the ABC Young Performer Awards.
The Melbourne-based ensemble Partridge String Quartet has also enjoyed its share of successes, winning first prize at the Queensland International Chamber Music Competition in 2019. In 2018 the quartet was one of ten string quartets world-wide selected for a three-week residency at the prestigious Banff Centre of Arts and Creativity in Canada. Quartet members William Huxtable (violin), Mana Ohashi (violin), Eunise Cheng (viola) and Daniel Smith (cello) would also be familiar to Australian audiences, appearing at the Musica Viva Festival
(AYO Chamber Players 2019), Port Fairy Spring Music Festival (2019) and inaugural Bendigo Chamber Music Festival (2020).
Previous FutureMakers include pianist Aura Go (2018-2019), percussionist Matthias Schack-Arnott (2018-2019) and wind ensemble Arcadia Winds (2015-2017).
