BACK ROW: Cameron Jamieson, Brock Imison, Meg Cohen, Josephine Vains MIDDLE ROW: Hannah Lane, Adam Masters, Katie Yap, Miranda Hill, Tim Willis FRONT ROW: Donald Nicolson, Meredith Beardmore, Anna Webb, Jennifer Kirsner, Edwina Cordingley, Samantha Cohen, Laura Vaughan
The ensemble performs variably as a chamber orchestra at full forces, through to small chamber ensemble, focusing on the repertoire of the 17th and 18th Centuries, but also exploring Classical, Romantic, and early 20th Century repertoire on period instruments. As early music specialists with a rich and varied range of experience in music of the Renaissance and Baroque, Classical and Romantic, folk and commissioned new music, the musicians bring together their unique creative skills into an imaginative, magnetic performance style.
Genesis Baroque has a particular focus on providing a platform for local and expatriate Australian guest musicians and soloists. The ensemble released its first studio album of Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerti Grossi Opus 6 in August 2020 with principal guest director, Sophie Gent, and founding music director, Lucinda Moon. The recording debuted as the highest selling Australian album on the ARIA classical album charts and received critical acclaim.
Genesis Baroque founder Jen Kirsner is a Melbourne-based violinist and early music specialist with a passion for chamber music, who has worked in diverse genres from Renaissance and garage bands in Melbourne to Ceilidh bands in Northern England.
Listed among Australia’s best classical performers by the ABC in 2019, New Zealand-born harpsichordist, synth artist, and organist, Donald Nicolson, is a prominent figure in performance and research of the music of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, and in high demand as a keyboardist, composer, and arranger.
Australian-born violinist Sophie Gent studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with Ryo Terakado. She has since become one of Europe’s most highly regarded baroque violinists, and is extremely active as a soloist, orchestral leader, chamber musician and teacher.
Genesis Baroque founder Jen Kirsner is a Melbourne-based violinist and early music specialist with a passion for chamber music, who has worked in diverse genres from Renaissance and garage bands in Melbourne to Ceilidh bands in Northern England.
Australian-born violinist Sophie Gent studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with Ryo Terakado. She has since become one of Europe’s most highly regarded baroque violinists, and is extremely active as a soloist, orchestral leader, chamber musician and teacher.
Julian is a prominent and accomplished barrister and human rights lawyer. He has been a strong advocate for the rights of asylum seekers, refugees, and the stolen generation, and he is known for significant pro bono work in a range of human rights areas.
Julian is also a committed and passionate patron of the arts, being actively involved a multitude of arts organisations and being a strong advocate for the role of arts patronage to support individual artists; a model of support that has enabled the arts to flourish for centuries.
In 2009, Julian was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) “for service as a human rights advocate, particularly for refugees and asylum seekers, to the arts as a patron and fund-raiser, and to the law”. Julian has been the recipient of the Human Rights Law Award, the Australian Peace Prize, the Sydney Peace Prize, and he was elected as a National Living Treasure in 2004.
To this end, Genesis Baroque has a number of sustainable practice approaches including:
ABOUT TRUST FOR NATURE
Trust for Nature is one of Australia’s oldest conservation organisations whose goal is to protect and restore places in Victoria where wildlife and native plants can thrive. They do this for the benefit of future generations by working now with private landholders, volunteers, government agencies and others with similar vision. Over the last 45 years, Trust for Nature has secured 100,000 hectares of habitat on private land forever – places that are home to some of our rarest species such as the Helmeted Honeyeater, Victoria’s critically endangered bird emblem.
You can read more about Trust for Nature and their vital conservation work here.
