Courtenay Cleary is an Australian violinist, currently on a full tuition scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she studies with Maureen Smith. In 2017 she performed for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and other distinguished guests at Westminster Abbey for the Royal Commonwealth Service. This was broadcast live on BBC television. Courtenay is an ABRSM and Tait Memorial Trust Scholar. She is a member of the Patronus Quartet who in 2015 was one of eight international quartets to be selected for the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and performed nine concerts as part of the Melbourne Festival. She has performed in many masterclasses for esteemed artists including Julian Rachlin, Daniel Hope, the St
Lawrence String Quartet, and the Borodin Quartet, from whom her own quartet received a recommendation for the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition
Courtenay is a core member of the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and also plays casually with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria. She studied at the Australian National Academy of Music from 2012-2014 with William Hennessy. During her time at the academy she played alongside many visiting artists including the Brodsky Quartet, Brett Dean, Michael Collins, The Australian Chamber Orchestra, The Aurora Orchestra, Anthony Marwood, Dale Barltrop and was concertmaster of the Australian National Academy of Music Orchestra under the direction of Simone Young, James Judd and Nicholas Carter.
In 2011 Courtenay studied under the direction of Associate Professor Patricia Pollett at the University of Queensland. During this time she was concertmaster of the University of Queensland Chamber and Symphony Orchestras and was finalist in the university’s Bach Prize and The Howard and Gladys Sleath Prize for Strings. She was the recipient of the Sleath String Scholarship for outstanding students and was a winner of the Sid Paige & Musica Viva/4MBS Chamber Music Prize. Courtenay was concertmaster of the Australian Youth Orchestra Young Symphonists Program in 2010.
Ariel Lanyi, born in 1997, began piano lessons with Lea Agmon just before his fifth birthday and made his orchestral debut at the age of 7. Since then, he has given numerous recitals in London, Paris (including Radio France), Rome, Prague, Belfast, and regularly in concerts broadcast live on Israeli radio and television. He has appeared as a soloist with a variety of orchestras in Israel, and has participated in the Israel Festival, Prague Music Performance, Tempietto Festival in Rome, the Ravello Festival, and the Young Prague Festival. As a chamber musician, he has appeared with members (including leading members) of the Prague Philharmonia, the Czech Philharmonic, and the Israel Philharmonic, among others.
In 2012, Ariel released Romantic Profiles on LYTE records, a recital album featuring Schumann’s Carnival Scenes from Vienna, Liszt’s Fantasy and Fugue on the theme B-A-C-H, Brahms’s Fantasies Op 116, and Janacek’s Piano Sonata IX 1905.
Ariel has recently participated in three workshops with Leon Fleisher: the Beethoven and Schubert Institute in Prague (2013), the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Lübeck (2014), and the Menuhin Festival and Academy in Gstaad (2014). He played in masterclasses for renowned artists such as Richard Goode, András Schiff, Emanuel Ax, Murray Perahia, Thomas Adès, Andrei Gavrilov, Yefim Bronfman, Paul Badura-Skoda, Ivan Moravec, Imogen Cooper, Pascal Devoyon, Angela Hewitt, Dénes Várjon, Mitsuko Uchida, Jonathan Biss, and others.
Ariel studied at the High School and Conservatory of the Jerusalem Academy of Music, in the piano class of Yuval Cohen. He also studied violin and composition, and was concertmaster of the High School and Conservatory Orchestra. Currently, he studies as a full scholarship student at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Hamish Milne.
Free recital (retiring collection)