Lina Andonovska wins 2013 Freedman Classical Fellowship

MHI member and volunteer Lina Andonovska has won the 2013 Freedman Classical Fellowship. Lina has been working with MHI over the past three years to support music and development in Timor-Leste. Read the following press release from the Music Council of Australia to find out more about Lina and the Freedman Fellowship:

"2013 FREEDMAN CLASSICAL FELLOW  

LINA ANDONOVSKA    

The Music Council of Australia and the Freedman Foundation have announced flautist Lina Andonovska the winner of the 2013 MCA Freedman Fellowship for Classical Music. Lina was one of four incredibly talented young musicians including Zane Banks, Bradley Kunda and Louise McKay, who vied for this prestigious award.

LINA ANDONOVSKA, 26 divides her time between the UK and Australia, and most recently, was co-principal flute with the Southbank Sinfonia (UK). Lina was an Australian National Academy of Music scholarship holder in 2010. Prior to that, she attained a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours at the Australian National University.  As a passionate performer of new music, Lina has worked with world-renowned composers Louis Andriessen, Brett Dean, Andrew Ford, Anthony Pateras and Larry Sitsky. Lina has been announced as a fellow at the Australian National Academy of Music and an Australia Council JUMP mentee for 2013.

The judges were international concert and chamber music pianist Tamara Anna Cislowska, Fellowship winner from 2003; Professor Karl Kramer, Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music; and international pianist and composer Ian Munro, heard frequently as a member of the Australia Ensemble.

Lina Andonovska won great praise from the judges. “Lina is a virtuosic player of great intelligence and exuberance. Her fresh imagination and vigour is brought to a great span of repertoire from the Baroque to the present and she commissions and works with some of Australia’s leading composers. She is very resourceful and already has performed with many orchestras in Australia and the UK and participated in eighth blackbird and Bang on a Can projects in the USA. Lina has a personality that reaches out to people and she helps audiences to find their way into unfamiliar music, even the new repertoire that does not follow old rules.”

Lina will use her Freedman Fellowship prize money to commission a work from and Australian composer, Anthony Pateras, and then include it on a new CD of Australian compositions written between 1998 and 2014, most of them never recorded before. The CD will be used to promote her career in Australia and internationally.

The Freedman Fellowship invites nominators from every state in Australia to put forward the finest young musicians they know. The judges were impressed by the diversity and accomplishment of the 12 candidates for the 2013 Fellowship.

The judges found the other three finalists to be highly gifted, dedicated musicians of great integrity. Zane Banks from Sydney brought something very new into classical music – the electric guitar, with a performance of a massive work by composer Georges Lentz, a member of the Sydney Symphony; he demonstrated many new technical possibilities for this instrument. Acoustic guitar player Bradley Kunda, also from Sydney, performed works by living composers – including himself, and is a player of great colour and sensitivity. Cellist Louise McKay from Perth showed great conviction and variety in romantic and new repertoire. Each one had plans for building an international presence and an expanding career.

The Fellowship program director, Dr Richard Letts, said “As it does every year, the Freedman Fellowship has brought to light some wonderful young Australian musicians and revealed again the depth and diversity of musical talent in the Australian classical music world. Our winner this year is an extraordinary musician, but so also are the other finalists. They all will be winners in their musical careers.”

The Fellowship carries a prize of $15,000 cash and nominees must be aged 30 years or under. The aim of the Fellowship is to assist young Australian musicians pursue a career on the international stage.

Inaugurated in 2001, the Freedman Music Fellowships, generously funded by the Freedman Foundation and administered by the Music Council of Australia, offer a unique opportunity for some of Australia’s most talented classical and jazz musicians to further their careers internationally."