Bach’s masterpiece heard as you know and love it; then as you have never heard it before

in association with the Elder Conservatorium of Music

Clemens Leske

One of Australia's most distinguished pianists, Clemens Leske has been concerto soloist with all of Australia's symphony orchestras (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Tasmanian, West Australian and Queensland) under such conductors as Vladimir Spivakov, Nicholas Braithwaite, Muhai Tang and Vernon Handley. His teachers have included Thea Kriek, Noreen Stokes, Herbert Stessin, Josef Seiger and Alfred Brendel.

During his studies at the Juilliard School, New York, Clemens Leske regularly appeared at Lincoln Center in the famed Bang on a Can and Focus festivals of contemporary music and won numerous prizes and awards, including the ABC Young Performer of the Year, the David Paul Landa Memorial Scholarship (Australia), and the Hattori Award (London).

Leske has regularly performed with the Australian String Quartet, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow Virtuosi and at such festivals as the Barossa International, Huntington, Spring and Adelaide. He was recently soloist with the Bangkok Symphony performing the Schumann piano concerto for the King of Thailand's birthday concert, and with the Sydney Symphony performing the Tchaikovsky concerto, to great acclaim.

In May 2005 Leske gave his London debut in the Royal Festival Hall, performing Rachmaninov's First Piano Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. As a result of his success, he has been invited to a return performance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Eastbourne Festival in February 2008.

Leske has released three discs of solo piano and chamber music and has recorded extensively for Australian radio stations ABC-FM, 2MBS and 5UV. Recent appearances include the World Premiere of Carl Vine's Anne Landa Preludes (2006), Brahms solo recital at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, performances as soloist with the Sydney Dance Company's acclaimed production of Grand in 2006 and solo recitals around Australia.

Paul Grabowsky

The Australian Art Orchestra is very much the brainchild of Paul Grabowsky, who is clearly one of the most talented musicians that Australia has produced, in jazz or any other field. Classically trained - he had ambitions to become a conductor, before becoming absorbed in jazz as a teenager - he quit his studies at the Melbourne Conservatorium to concentrate on jazz.

In 1980, he received an Australia Council grant which enabled him to travel to the USA and Europe, where he could accelerate his training as a jazz pianist. He had the chance to work with jazz legends like Chet Baker, Art Farmer and Johnny Griffin. Then, having settled in Munich, he led his own bands, playing the music of heroes like Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, before starting to develop his own ideas as a composer.

Paul returned to Melbourne in 1984, and formed a trio with bassist Gary Costello and drummer Allan Browne, which won an ARIA for its first CD 6x3 on Spiral Scratch. The Paul Grabowsky Trio is an ongoing concern, and won the 1996 ARIA for its second CD, When Words Fail (Origin).

As a composer, he has written scores for numerous films and television productions (including the ABC TV series, Phoenix and Janus). From 1990-92, he led the house band on the Seven network's Tonight Live variety show, hosted by Steve Vizard, which helped turn an underground jazz musician into a household name.
More recently, Paul was the co-host of the ABC's 14-part music series, Access All Areas. In 1997 and 1998, he was ABC TV's commissioning editor for Arts & Entertainment.

In the jazz sphere, Paul's trio became a quintet in the late '80s, with the addition of singer Shelley Scown and saxophonist Ian Chaplin. He recorded a series of albums for Warner Music. The first, The Moon And You, featured tracks by the quintet, alongside tracks from a New York session where Paul played with US jazz masters, Dewey Redman and Paul Motian. Tee Vee and Viva Viva were recorded by a sextet featuring US bassist Ed Schuller, which toured nationally and in Europe.

Paul was a member of the Australian Jazz Orchestra, a 10-piece, all-star group assembled for the Bicentennial celebrations in 1988, which toured nationally and in the USA. (Other members included Don Burrows and James Morrison). Another band, Wizards of Oz, was a co-operative quartet co-led by saxophonist Dale Barlow; they toured Europe in 1989.

In 1990, was invited to arrange some Edith Piaf songs for a Munich-based ensemble, Die Konferenz. The success of this project led to another commission for Die Konferenz, to arrange some German popular songs of the 1930s or earlier.

From there, it was a relatively small step for Paul to conceive Ringing the Bell Backwards. With financial support from the Melbourne Jazz Co-operative, Paul secured a spot in the program for the 1993 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts.