Alumni Profiles

Iain Grandage

Composer & Musician
_{Sinfonietta 1983 | WAYO 1984 - 1986 | Chamber Orchestra 1989}

Composer and musician Iain Grandage has won Helpmann and Green Room Awards for his theatre scores, which include Cloudstreet, The Blue Room, Babes in the Wood, Plainsong, The Odyssey, The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea and True West. He has also been Composer-in-Residence with the WA Symphony Orchestra and the Youth Orchestras of Australia. Other works include an opera for children, chamber music for the Brodsky String Quartet, scores for dance projects (including Lawn and Drover's Wives) and many collaborations with indigenous musicians, initially as musical director and arranger for the national tours of Jimmy Chi's multi award-winning Corrugation Road and subsequently with the Spinifex people of central Australia and the Black Arm Band.

He says:  "WAYO is the reason I'm a musician. The experiences I had under the batons of Richard Gill and Roy Rimmer for me exemplified what music is about. They were uninhibited, committed and passionate - probably not note perfect, but we were made to feel that anything was possible. That stays with me still."

Leanne Glover

Associate Principal Oboe, WASO
_{WAYO 1981 | Camerata 1982}

Leanne Glover completed a Bachelor of Music with first class honours at the University of Western Australia, where she studied with Joel Marangella. During her studies she won the Dr V.H. Cooper Prize for Most Outstanding First Year Student and twice claimed the Margaret Bellos Chamber Music Performance Prize.  During this time she was an active member of WAYO, The WA Arts Orchestra and also performed with WASO as a casual oboist.  

Ms Glover earned three scholarships to continue her studies: The WA Art Council Award, an international Study Grant from the Music Board of the Australia Council and the John Hind Memorial Scholarship. This gave her the opportunity to study for a year in Amsterdam with Han de Vries and then in Zurich with Emmanuel Abbuel and Thomas Indermuhle for three years, where she gained a postgraduate degree in Performance. During this time she was also awarded a grant from the City of Zurich.

Upon her return to Perth, Leanne obtained a permanent position with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra where she is currently the Associate Principal Oboe.  She also teaches oboe at the University of Western Australia.

Prue Ashurst

_{WAYO 1977 - 1979} 

Prue is a graduate from the University of Western Australia with a Masters in Music Performance (Choral Conducting) and Bachelors of Music Education and Performance. She has completed studies and performances both interstate and overseas.

Her school choirs have sung in Geneva, London, Singapore and Wales. Prue is in demand as a choral conductor, adjudicator and music director in Perth. She has conducted for the Perth International Arts Festival, WA Opera, the Gilbert & Sullivan Society, UWA Choral Society, WASO Chorus, the WASO Youth Choir and since 2002 has freelanced as a guest conductor in Sydney and Melbourne with Australia's most prestigious children's choir, Gondwana Voices.  In 2005 she was chorus master for both the WASO Chorus and the 100-voiced Youth Choir performing with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls, conducted by the internationally-acclaimed Marin Alsop. In 2006 Prue trained the WASO Youth Choir for Berlioz's Te Deum with maestro Claus Peter Flor and in the same year trained 120 very excited Penrhos College girls who appeared with Hugh Jackman in the acclaimed Perth season of The Boy from Oz. 

Prue is also a regular music presenter on ABC 720 with Eoin Cameron. Their CD, ‘Prue and the Maestro' became the classical number one best seller in Australia in 2007.

Prue fondly remembers her time as a young clarinetist in the very early days of the WA Youth Music Association with a long-haired Alan Meyer and a very young and energetic Catherine McCorkill.

Catherine Hewgill

Principal Cello, Sydney Symphony
_{WAYO 1976 - 1978}

Catherine Hewgill began her cello studies at the age of ten in Perth. In 1978 she performed with the West Australian Youth Orchestra before travelling to the UK for a year's study with Eileen Croxford at the Royal College of Music in London.

In 1981 Catherine Hewgill gave solo performances with the University of Southern California Orchestra and the American Youth Symphony Orchestra. She completed her Bachelor of Music degree and received awards for Outstanding Chamber Music Graduate, and an Aspen Fellowship to the Aspen Summer Music Festival in Colorado, where she was Principal Guest Cellist with the Chamber Orchestra.

In 1984 she won the Hammer-Rostropovich Scholarship and was invited by Mstislav Rostropovich to appear in a special recital at the Second American Cello Congress in Arizona. A period of private study with Rostropovich followed.

She returned to Perth in 1985 to appear as soloist with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Then followed a European concert tour with 'I Solisti Veneti', and study with William Pleeth in London. On her return to Australia she joined the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

In 1989 Catherine Hewgill joined the Sydney Symphony, and was appointed Principal Cello a year later. She has performed as a soloist of distinction with most of the major Australian symphony orchestras and in solo recitals. Recent performances with the Sydney Symphony have included Haydn's Sinfonia concertante and C major Cello Concerto, Elgar's Cello Concerto and the Brahms Double Concerto with Concertmaster Michael Dauth.

In 2003 Catherine and Michael toured Japan with the Orchestra Ensemble Kamazawa, performing the Brahms in amongst other cities Tokyo and Osaka.  In December last year she featured as a soloist with violinist Nigel Kennedy in performances with the SSO.