TOP UP INSTRUCTORS

JOHN BABBAGE – COMPOSER, SAXOPHONE A founding member of Topology, John studied saxophone at the Queensland Conservatorium Of Music, graduating with a Diploma in Jazz in 1987. He has been performing and teaching for over 30 years, has toured Australia, Europe, the US, Canada, India, Singapore and Indonesia, released 15 albums by Australian and international composers, and his compositions have been played on radio and television worldwide. Babbage is a sought-after cross art form composer with commissions for works such as R&J (Expressions Dance Company), Argus (Dead Puppet Society) and Ocean’s Skin (Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre, USA). He has recorded and performed with the above groups as well as Terry Riley (USA), the Brodsky Quartet (UK), Abhinaya Theatre Company (India), Kate Miller-Heidke, Katie Noonan, the Kransky Sisters, Christine Anu, Trichotomy, TaikOz, William Barton, Grant

Collins and many more. Babbage is also a driving force in Topology’s Top Up education and community engagement program and is actively sought after by teachers around the country to deliver improvisation and composition workshops. His work for Top Up has brought him to numerous communities in regional Queensland, Northern Territory, New South Wales and Victoria.

LOUISE KING - CELLO Louise King is a portfolio musician, recording and concert artist, Teaching Artist, active chamber musician, examiner, conductor, music director and adjudicator. She has extensive international training and professional performing and teaching experience. Louise is a multi-award and competition-winning graduate of the Royal Colleges of Music in London and Manchester, and has worked extensively throughout the UK, Europe and Asia with the BBC Philharmonic, the Hallé Orchestra, and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and on faculty at the Royal Northern College of Music and Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. As a soloist and chamber music partner, she performs in Australia’s major art festivals and established classical concert series and has recorded seventeen albums showcasing diverse collaborations from New Music, Chamber Music, Early Music and singer-songwriters including three albums for ABC classics. As

Artistic Director of Cello Dreaming she runs a teaching practice, presents community and professional concerts, music workshops, collaborative performance projects, and mentors emerging young musicians. She is a guest conductor and clinician for school music camps and tutors for the Australian Youth Orchestra and Australian Chamber Orchestra education programs.

ANDREW MADDICK - VIOLIN Andrew has performed with Hans Zimmer, Smokey Robinson, George Benson, Missy Higgins, The Whitlams, Katie Noonan, The Bootleg Beatles, Kathryn Jenkins and Paolo Nutini, whose album Sunny Side Up he also plays on. Andrew performed on Sting’s DVD “If On A Winter’s Night” and toured the show to Paris and Germany. Andrew is a principal musician for the Hofesh Shechter Company. With them he has toured extensively performing on violin, viola, electric guitar and bass in Political Mother, and In Your Rooms. Having completed a Masters degree in music performance from the University of Queensland, Australia in 2004 Andrew moved to the UK to further his studies with Marianne Thorsen and Pete Lale. He was awarded a scholarship to attend the Dartington Summer School on Baroque violin in 2005 and in

2008 the Freiburg Academy on both baroque and contemporary violin.

CHRISTA POWELL - VIOLIN Highly-respected performance artist, session musician, and music educator, Christa is as comfortable lending her talents to the orchestra pit as she is in character wardrobe, playing on stage with Led Zeppelin or playing solo violin and strolling the stage with Expressions Dance Company. One of Topology’s founders, a steadying influence and strong driving force towards the shared common goal, Christa has helped steer Topology from the start, emerging as Creative and Education Director. When she’s not playing with Topology, she performs a wide range of chamber music (she and Therese are two thirds of the Muses Trio with cellist Louise King), her long-held passion. She also plays orchestral music with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, gigs with bands and teaches violin at Brisbane Girls Grammar School, in her private studio and as a guest at various education institutions. Christa studied at the University of Queensland (BMus Hon 1991) with Elizabeth Morgan, in London (1991 – 1993) with Emanuel Herwitz of the Melos Ensemble and at the Queensland

Conservatorium of Music with Carmel Kaine, obtaining her Master of Music in 1996. In London, she played with the Olyver Gypsy Ensemble.

SONIA WILSON – VIOLIN Sonia began learning the violin at age seven once she realised it always played the melodies in the ballets she grew up watching on VCR. She studied with Graeme Jennings at the Queensland Conservatorium before completing a masters with Goetz Richter at the Sydney Conservatorium. Sonia has a great love for chamber music and was a founding member and first violinist of the Geist String Quartet from 2015-2019. The quartet was awarded the Westheimer Fellowship, E.V. Llewellyn Memorial Award and the Mary Vallentine Award and toured both nationally and internationally; performing at the Musica Viva Festival in Sydney, the St Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar in Stanford, USA, the Orford Music Academy in Quebec, Canada, Internationale Sommerakademie für Kammermusik Niedersachsen in Germany and the Luberon International String Quartet Festival as part of a ProQuartet professional training course in France. Sonia has a keen interest in contemporary classical music and in 2018 travelled to Germany to attend the Darmstadt International Summer Course for New Music, performing works by

György Kurtág, Elliott Carter and Holly Harrison. She has guested with a number of contemporary ensembles including Topology, Sirius Chamber Ensemble and Rubiks Collective, who she joined for their 2018 international tour. Sonia has worked with orchestras all over Australia, including the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Opera Australia Orchestra, the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and AYO’s Momentum Ensemble. In 2018 she was an Emerging Artist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and a member of ACO Collective and in 2019 joined the Australian Chamber Orchestra for one of their national tours. In November 2019 she began a full-time position as tutti first violin with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

BETHAN LEWIS – VIOLA Bethan Lewis is a freelance violist and highly experienced string educator with 17 years of experience as a violin and viola teacher in schools, privately, for music services and for academies in the UK and Australia. Her teaching has spanned all ages and abilities including designing and leading school string programmes, workshops, masterclasses and orchestral and chamber music tutorials. Recently, Bethan undertook a Kodaly Australia secondary teaching course and completed a 500hr yoga teacher training to ensure a thorough understanding of best postural alignment and ranges of movement. As a professional violist, Bethan has performed with contemporary ensembles Black Square Quartet, Collusion and Topology. She worked on the Hofesh Schecter Dance Company’s Survivor project at the Barbican in London and Political Mother Choreographer’s Cut project in Tokyo, Montpelier and at Sadler’s Wells in London. She toured the UK with Tango Siempre on

their Tangents project/CD with Gilad Atzmon. Bethan also toured the UK for many years as principal violist for Mid Wales Opera and she was a member of the chamber group Orchestra of the Swan. Orchestral work has included the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC ScottishSymphony, English Chamber Orchestra, Australia Symphony Orchestra (principal), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, RTE National Symphony Orchestra and Camerata.

TOBY LOVELAND - GUITAR Toby is a Brisbane based guitarist who has been working as a professional musician for over twenty years. Toby is in high demand in the musical theatre scene featuring as guitarist in the QPAC seasons of “School of Rock”, “Muriel’s Wedding”, “Chicago”, “Book of Mormon”, “The Lion King”, “Priscilla”, “Kinky Boots”, “Jersey Boys”, “Wicked”, “Mamma Mia” and “Matilda” to name a few. Toby has supported some of the country’s finest performers including Anthony Callea, Rob Mills, Bert Newton, Todd McKenny, Lucy Durack, Paulini, Jack Vidgen, Erika Heynatz, Silvie Paladino, David Atkins, Stephen Amos, Luke Hunter, Tim Smith, Peter Casey, Kellie Dickerson, The Veronicas, Jessica Mauboy, Marcia Hines, The Village People, Kate Ceberano, James Morrison, Richard Clapton, The Drifters, Little Patti, Normie Rowe, David Campbell, Katie Noonan, Christine Anu, Sean O’Boyle. Toby also

worked alongside John Foreman in the 2018 and 2019 TV Week Logie Awards Band. Toby has toured extensively throughout Australia and the globe working in Taiwan, Bali, Fiji and throughout Europe. On the local front, Toby is a member of one of Brisbane’s finest duo acts Phoenix, as well as operating his own professional covers band Savvy. In addition to performing, Toby has been teaching the guitar and bass at Brisbane educational institutions for over 20 years. Currently, when not on stage, Toby enjoys lecturing in contemporary music studies at TAFE Brisbane and teaching at St Joseph’s College Gregory Terrace.

THOMAS GREEN – COMPOSER (ELECTRONIC) Thomas Green has a reputation in Brisbane (Australia) as a versatile composer whose focus is finding a musical home between many and varied streams, often seamlessly melding classical and contemporary idioms. He is the recipient of various government grants, commissions and is a prize-winner in national composition competitions. He completed his PhD in 2016, and his music has been premiered around Australia and internationally, with performances in Italy, France, UK, Croatia and China in recent years. He has composed and arranged music for The Sydney Symphony (with Josh Pyke), The Australian String Quartet, Katie Noonan, Opera Qld, La Boite Theatre, Plexus (Melbourne), and the Brisbane-based organisations Collusion Music, Trivium Ensemble and Argo. In 2017 he was commissioned by The Queensland Music

Festival to write a concerto for Manu Delago and QYO, in 2018 his original dance music for Turbine, a show by Collusion, was toured in Brisbane and Shanghai, and in 2019 he is writing music for Katie Noonan with the Australian String Quartet, for The Glad Tomorrow. He also releases experimental electronic music under the moniker Praxis Axis. He lectures in music theory at the Queensland Conservatorium.

DR GRANT COLLINS – PERCUSSION, DRUMS Grant is one of the forerunners in the industry, forever pushing the limits and confines of music and leading cutting edge, creative and unconventional drumming. His approach defies stereotypical drum set methodologies with his innovative and enthralling solo drum set compositions. He uses all four limbs both individually and as a collective to present multi-timbral soundscapes, defining the drum set as a contemporary solo instrument for the world stage. Through his determination, Grant has developed powerful and modern drum set solo performances, which have captivated audiences not only in Australia, but around the world. Grant’s vivacious and dynamic one man show is a reflection of his infatuation with the drums, which has seen him tour and perform as an international artist at many concert halls across the

globe. Not only does Grant attack the boundaries of a solo performer, he also pushes the restrictions of his instrument to create ground-breaking ingenious works. Grant’s sell out performances have also been trumped with feature presentations on countless radio stations and television programmes.

ANDREW JOHNSON – BASS, TRUMPET Andrew Johnson is a versatile musician with a wide range of performing and recording experience across many musical styles. He holds a Bachelor of Music with honours in performance and has worked extensively on both bass and trumpet. He has enjoyed performing for large touring shows such as Chicago, The Book of Mormon, Matilda, Aladdin, The Lion King, Mamma Mia, Muriel’s Wedding, Mary Poppins, Avenue Q and Wicked as well as with productions for the Qld Theatre Company, Opera Australia and The Little Red Company amongst others. He has played live with popular artists such as James Morrison, Kate Miller-Heidke, Kate Ceberano, Tom Burlinson and Glen Shorrock and has recorded for Mark Sholtez, Salliana Seven Campbell, Luke Kennedy, Adam Lopez, Francesca De Valence, Yves Klein Blue and Bindi

Irwin. Andrew currently works part time at Mt. Alvernia and Padua Colleges where he helps students gain confidence in writing, arranging and recording their music.

ELLI WELSH - PIANO Pianist Elli Welsh completed a Bachelor of Music in 2016 and a Master of Music Studies in 2018 (Distinction) at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University under the tutelage of Natasha Vlassenko. Elli currently holds a scholarship position at the Royal Academy of Music where she is undertaking a Professional Diploma in Piano Accompaniment with James Baillieu. Elli also won the Ena Williams Award for Postgraduate Study Overseas. Elli’s excellence in performance has also been recognised through the Margaret Nickson Prize for Voice and Accompaniment (2017) and the John and Sue Thompson Vocal Accompaniment Scholarship (2018). Last year, Elli toured northern and central Queensland with award-winning quintet, Topology. Also a member of Brisbane City Opera (BCO), Elli was Repetiteur for the 2019 production of Opera Galactica (an Australian premiere direct from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Repetiteur and

Performer for the 2018 production of Handel’s Apollo e Dafne and the 2017 production of Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne. In 2018, she was also appointed Student Repetiteur and Performer for the Conservatorium’s production of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, Puccini’s La rondine and Massenet’s Cendrillon.