Classical

Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy (sometimes transliterated Ashkenazi) (Russian: Влади́мир Дави́дович А́шкенази) (born July 6, 1937) is a Russian conductor and, more notably, a pianist. He was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Ashkenazy began his studies at the age of 6 and showing prodigious talent, was accepted at the Central Music School at 8. A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, he won second prize in the prestigious International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955 and shared first prize in the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Competition with English pianist John Ogdon.

Sophie Hutchings is Australian pianist and composer. Having begun playing piano young growing up in a musical family, Sophie started writing properly in her teens. Sophie’s compositions move from disarmingly spare and elegant beginnings to curl out with a tingling edge, propelling its austerity into urgent and epic realms. Violin, cello, drums, percussion and organ heighten the flight these pieces can take as well as dip and swell within the more dimly lit moods of gentler nuance, casting a particular spell across the range of feeling captured in Sophie’s playing.

The Australian String Quartet is Australia's leading string quartet, and presents an annual program of chamber music throughout Australia and internationally. Founded in 1985 the ASQ has received critical acclaim both at home and abroad for performances of a diverse range of repertoire, including world premieres of contemporary Australian works. Overseas tours take the quartet to North America, Europe and Asia.

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (born December 6, 1933 in Czernica, Silesia, Poland. Died 12 November 2010 in Katowice, Poland) was a Polish composer of classical music. Though his earlier work in the late 1950s and 1960s were characterised by a dissonant modernism influenced by Nono, Stockhausen and contemporaries Penderecki and Serocki, he moved in the mid 1970's towards a 'pure' sacred minimalist sound encapsulated by the 1976 Symphony No. 3.