Early Music - Staff
Chair/Associate Professor
Neal Peres Da Costa (Early Keyboards) DipEarlyMus Guildhall MMus City Uni London PhD Leeds BMUs(Hons)
Lecturers
Marina Robinson (Baroque Violin, Viola), BMus MMus UWA PhD UT
Part-time Staff
Tommie Andersson (Lute), BMus MMus(Perf) Goteborg
Kirsten Barry (Baroque Oboe)
Rachel Beesley (Historical violin)
Nicole Forsyth (Historical Viola, String Tutor - Early Music Ensemble)
Julia Fredersdorff (Historical violin)
Hans-Dieter Michatz (Recorder/Baroque Flute) DipEd BMus(equiv) Hannover UMDip(Perf) The Hague
Leanne Sullivan (Baroque Trumpet) BMus Syd
Philip Swanton (Organ) DSCM, Diplom fur alte Musik Basel
Daniel Yeadon (Baroque Cello/Viola da Gamba) BA Hons Oxford, PostGrad Dip (Perf) RCM London
Chair/Associate Professor
Neal Peres Da Costa (Early Keyboards) DipEarlyMus Guildhall MMus City Uni London PhD Leeds BMUs(Hons)
Dr. Neal Peres Da Costa specialises in performance on historical keyboard instruments of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. He lectures at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in the Musicology and Keyboard units and is Chair of the Early Music Unit. His current research activities include converting his PhD into a monograph for publication, giving papers at national and international conferences, and recent creative research output in the form of a CD recording with Richard Tognetti and Daniel Yeadon of J.S. Bach's Sonatas for violin and obbligato keyboard were released on the ABC Classics label.
After graduating from the University of Sydney with first class honours B.Mus., Peres Da Costa attained a Postgraduate Diploma in Early Music from the Guildhall School of Music and a Master in Music Performance from the City University in London. In 2002, he attained a PhD from the University of Leeds, where he researched performing practices in late 19th-century piano playing with particular reference to early recordings.
Dr. Peres Da Costa joined the faculty at the Conservatorium as a full time member in 2005, after spending many years as Professor of Fortepiano at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he was also a Lecturer in Performance Practice. He also held the post of Lecturer in 19th-Century Performing Practice for of the Masters Degree at Trinity College in London. In 2000 Peres Da Costa was Artist in Residence at Bretton Hall College at the University of Leeds.
Peres Da Costa was co-founder of Florilegium, an internationally renowned period instrument ensemble with which he performed around the world and made many award-winning recordings. He has also performed with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Australis, Orchestra of the Antipodes, Pinchgut Opera, and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.
Lecturers
Philip Swanton (Organ) DSCM, Diplom fur alte Musik Basel
Philip Swanton trained under David Rumsey at Sydney Conservatorium of Music before pursuing postgraduate studies in historical keyboard instruments in Basel, Switzerland with Jean-Claude Zehnder at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.
He has enjoyed an immensely successful career as a performer, recording artist and teacher in both hemispheres. Numerous concert appearances at major festivals and venues have taken him throughout Europe, across Australia and as far afield as Mexico. He has produced solo recordings for a number of leading European radio networks and recording labels (Motette, Pelca, Koch-Schwann), presented masterclasses and workshops for music institutions and summer academies throughout Europe, edited keyboard music for the publishing house, Carus, of Stuttgart and published articles in a number of journals.
Philip returned to Australia in 1992 after living and working in Europe for 16 years. In addition to lecturing at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, he is on the music staff of Sydney Grammar School, is Senior Teacher in Organ at the ACT Organ School (Canberra) and is in frequent demand as an organ recitalist around Australia.
His other great musical passion is the fortepiano. In a series of nine recitals between 1998 and 2000, he became the first Australian ever to publicly perform the complete keyboard sonatas of Joseph Haydn on harpsichord and fortepiano. On his most recent CD,“Just for Pleasure” (Walsingham Classics), Philip directs the period-instrument ensemble Camerata Classica in a world-première recording of Six Fortepiano Trios (Op.13) by the 18th century German composer, Johann August Just.
Daniel Yeadon (Baroque Cello/Viola da Gamba) BA Hons Oxford, PostGrad Dip (Perf) RCM London
Daniel Yeadon has a worldwide career as a cellist and viola da gamba player; his repertoire ranges from renaissance to contemporary. His regular chamber music collaborators include Neal Peres Da Costa, Genevieve Lacey, Ironwood, Romanza, Kammer, Elision and The Collective. He has appeared as soloist with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, tours frequently with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, plays every year with Pinchgut Opera and records regularly for ABC Classics. Daniel has taught cello and viola da gamba at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music in London, at Cambridge and York Universities in the UK, at Bucknell and Penn State Universities in the USA. Daniel is guest principal cellist with many of the period instrument ensembles based in London, including the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
Originally from the UK, Daniel read physics at Oxford University and specialised in early music performance at the Royal College of Music in London. For many years Daniel was a member of the renowned period instrument ensemble Florilegium and later joined the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, performing in major venues throughout the world and recording many award-winning CDs.