Elizabeth Sellars

AGSM (Guildhall)

Lecturer in Strings, Strings Coordinator

Email: Elizabeth.Sellars@monash.edu
Phone: (03) 9905 1325
Fax: (03) 9905 3241
Location: Room 109, Performing Arts Centre, Building 68, Clayton Campus

Biography

Elizabeth Sellars has enjoyed a distinguished career as both performer and teacher in Australia and abroad with a reputation as “dynamically exciting” (the Australian) and “one of the few violinists…who can handle works that move in new directions – intellectually difficult material…with level headed assurance’ (the Age).

Elizabeth was a prize winning graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where she studied with David Takeno (violin) and the Takacs and Gabrieli String Quartets (chamber music). Further significant influences included Sandor Vegh and Yehudi Menuhin with whom Elizabeth worked at the International Musicians’ Seminar at Prussia Cove in Cornwall and at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland.

During her time in London, Elizabeth was a winner of the inaugural John Tunnell Trust and the Royal Overseas League Ensemble Prize and Miller Trophy. As soloist and chamber musician, she toured extensively in the UK, broadcast for the BBC, and performed throughout Europe with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and the English Chamber Orchestra.

Since her return to Australia, Elizabeth has played with Elision, Libra, Ensemble Liaison and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. She has been guest concertmaster with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria and Australia Pro Arte and her recordings for Naxos with the Schirmer Ensemble have been received with high regard. Her live concerts and recordings are regularly heard on ABC Classic FM and her trio Temenos, which presented its inaugural series in 2001 was a prize-winner in the 9th Concorso Musicale Internazionale "Riviera del Conero" in Italy.

Elizabeth is acknowledged as a fine interpreter of new works and has performed world premieres dedicated to her by Julian Yu, Dominik Karski and Philip Czaplowski.

Recent projects include the critically acclaimed cycle of the Mozart piano and violin sonatas with the pianist Kenji Fujimura and a performance of “The Lark Ascending” by Vaughan Williams with Pro Arte Australia at BMW Edge, Federation Square. She performed in the Berlin Festival with Elision in a concert profiling the Australian composer Liza Lim. She also toured as guest first violin with Banff first prize winners the Tin Alley String Quartet on their American and Canadian tour and at Huntingdon Festival. Upcoming CD releases include the world premiere recording of the George Benjamin Sonata along with works by Boulez, Messiaen and Kurtag.

Elizabeth has taught at the Victorian College of the Arts and the University of Melbourne and is an examiner for the AMEB. In 2003 she was appointed Lecturer in Violin at Monash University where she directs the Monash Sinfonia and teaches a thriving string studio.