JANE DOWNER (Baroque oboe/recorder)
After completing a BA/BMus (Hons) at the University of Adelaide, Jane took up the baroque oboe with Valerie Darke in the UK. A scholarship from the David Reichenberg Trust enabled her to continue studies with Paul Goodwin, Professor of Baroque & Classical Oboe at the Royal College of Music. She performs mostly in Europe with groups such as Concerto Koln, Cappella Coloniensis, the English Baroque Soloists, Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Scottish Early Music Consort, The Sixteen, Florilegium and Early Music Network winners, charivari agrèable.
On recordings Jane appears with the Purcell Quartet, Gabrieli Consort, English Concert, Cambridge Baroque Camerata and King's Consort. As Artistic Director of the Frideswide Ensemble of Oxford, Jane promotes chamber music concerts using historical instruments, and performances of choral works such as J S Bach's St John Passion and Mozart's Mass in C minor under the direction of Australian conductor, Peter Leech.
In Australia, Jane has performed at the New England Bach Festival, Ballarat Organ Festival, Adelaide Festival Fringe, the Canberra Multicultural Festival and given solo recitals at University House, Canberra. Jane was a tutor on the children's programme at the 2005 Festival of Movement, Dance and the Recorder in Armidale, NSW. Jane returns to Sydney in December 2006 for performances of Mozart's Idomeneo with Pinchgut Opera.
DAVID CHUNG (Harpsichord)
David Chung has performed extensively on a variety of historic and modern keyboard instruments, and has been warmly commended for the "finesse et sensibilité" of his interpretation. As concerto soloist and continuo player, he has collaborated with such ensembles as the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Virtuosi, and the Macau Chamber Orchestra. First trained as a pianist in Hong Kong, Chung studied music and French at the Chinese University, and, upon graduation, was awarded the Jardine Matheson Scholarship for performing studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London. He received the Commonwealth Scholarship for pursuing musicological research at Churchill College, Cambridge where he completed his doctoral dissertation on 17th-century French keyboard music. He was awarded the Concert Recital Diploma (Premier Prix) at the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama and was a scholarship recipient at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Italy. His CD of stylus phantasticus works by Bach and his contemporaries is available from URM Audio (www.urmaudio.com).
As musicologist, he has contributed a critical edition of keyboard arrangements of Jean-Baptiste Lully's orchestral music (UT Orpheus, 2004, www.utorpheus.com) as well as articles and reviews in such journals as Early Music, Early Keyboard Journal, Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music (www.sscm-jscm.org) and Piano Artistry. As teacher, he has given lectures, lecture recitals and masterclasses in institutions including the Trinity College of Music, Cambridge University, Texas State University, UT Austin, the Central Conservatory of Beijing, and Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Chung is currently Associate Professor and Performance Coordinator at Hong Kong Baptist University.
