Fintan Murphy

violin, viola

Fintan performs as a recitalist and chamber musician. Fintan works closely with composers editing and performing new works and has released 14 CD and DVD recordings. He directs the Melbourne String Ensemble, a youth orchestra specializing in small ensemble repertoire and chamber music for strings. He has worked as a guest conductor and soloist with many youth orchestras in Europe including: the orchestra of Manresa Conservatory, Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa and Junge Kammerorchester Stuttgart, He currently teaches violin and string pedagogy at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and Melbourne University.

Emma Wade

viola

Emma hails from Sydney. After completing a Bachelor of Music (Hons) in viola performance at the University of Newcastle she returned to Sydney and worked as a peripatetic music teacher and performer, setting up several primary school string programs, string ensembles, Celtic ensembles and her String Quartet Bachetal. In 2006-08, Emma completed a Master of Music with Specialist Strings Study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (UK), while performing across the concert halls of northern England with a variety of ensembles including her String Quartet Corroboree, the Stockport and Wilmslow Symphony Orchestras, Manchester Camerata, Manchester Chamber Players and Halle Players. Emma now lives in Castlemaine and works across the region as an instrumental teacher in schools, and as a violist with Quartet Conspirito and Castlemaine Chamber Players. Together with colleague Heather Cummins she began the student string orchestra Resonance, now in its sixth year.

Sam Goble

cello

Sam Goble finished his degree of Masters studying under Tim Walden and Josie Vains in 2006 at the Victorian College of the Arts. In 1996 he was awarded a Melbourne Symphony Young Artist Award for which he chose the Saint-Saens Cello Concerto in A minor to workshop and broadcast. Other awards include the Piers Coetmore Scholarship for Cellists, Atheneum award for chamber music, and in 1999 he won the John Gaitskell Mensa Memorial Award for the most outstanding end of degree recital for that year. In 2000, Sam toured with the Cologne Youth Philharmonic through Wales and Northern France, in part as soloist. Returning to Australia in 2001, he in 2002 recommenced study for honours, again at VCA. In 2004 he completed the first year of his Masters degree and went to Germany to study at the Hannover Hochschule fur Musik und Theater in Hanover Germany for three semesters with Tilmann Wick returning in 2006. He now works as a teacher and freelance cellist in central Victoria.