Lucy Macourt (violin), Isabelle Watson (violin), Sterling Rieck (viola), Chiara Kelle (Cello) and Katherine Day (piano)
Recitals on the Fringe 2025 Season
North Adelaide Baptist Church Hall – Tynte Street, North Adelaide
Run Time: 2.00pm – 3.00pm (estimated 1 hours)
Program subject to change
Program
Four States Quartet: Lucy Macourt (violin), Isabelle Watson (violin), Sterling Rieck (viola), Chiara Kelle (Cello)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1909 – 1975)
String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110
| 23′ |
Lucy Macourt (violin) and Katherine Day (piano)
Sergei Prokofiev (1891 – 1953)
Violin Sonata No. 2 in D major, Op. 94a
| 24′ |
ABOUT LUCY
Hailing from Sydney, Violinist Lucy Macourt is a dynamic and accomplished musician with a passion for performance and pedagogy. Lucy performs regularly with the Adelaide and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, teaches at St Peter’s Girls and Pulteney Grammar Schools and is an active member of the Australian String Teachers Association’s committee. Lucy’s students have won multiple scholarships and competition prizes over the last several years, following in Lucy’s own footsteps.
Lucy completed her Bachelor of Music (Performance) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2019, studying under Dr. Goetz Richter. During her time there, Lucy earned multiple prestigious awards, including the Matteson and Nancy Scholarship, the Kathleen and Allison Short Scholarship, and the Sydney Scholars Award. Before her degree, she was part of the Conservatorium’s Rising Stars program with Dr. Evgeny Sorkin. Lucy is also an alumnus of the Australian Youth Orchestra and interned with the Opera Australia Orchestra. In 2020, Lucy moved to Canberra to join the Canberra Symphony Orchestra’s Kingsland Artistic Residency Program, where she continues to perform regularly as a section violinist. She also curated a series of chamber music and solo recitals for the Wesley Music Centre and toured regional NSW and the ACT with her trio, The Olive Trio (featuring harp, oboe, and violin).
Alongside her performing career, Lucy built a thriving private teaching practice, with students earning top prizes at the Wollongong Eisteddfod and securing scholarships to leading music schools in Sydney and Canberra. In 2023, Lucy relocated to Adelaide to further her studies in performance and pedagogy at the Elder Conservatorium of Music under Dr. Elizabeth Layton. She received the David Galliver Memorial Scholarship that year, and in 2024, was awarded the Decie Denholm Scholarship, which enabled her to undertake historical performance training with the Tafelmusik Orchestra in Canada and further pedagogy training at the Center Stage Strings Festival.
ABOUT KATHERINE
Katherine Day’s profound interpretations and carefully sculpted intimate sound worlds touch on the infinite and timeless. Her performances bring together disparate works with a common narrative, spotlighting the unusual along the way. Katherine’s love of theatre, new music, and vocal music, has seen her perform art song and operas in theatres, concert halls and festivals to critical acclaim. Katherine was Principal Pianist with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra for three years pre-COVID.
As a concerto soloist, she has performed: Grieg Concerto in A minor, Mozart Concerto in D minor, Ravel Concerto for Left Hand, Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F, F. X. Mozart Concerto in E flat, and Beethoven Concertos 1, 3 4 and 5. Katherine has been welcomed into many recital series around Australia as a soloist, including the Montague Visiting Artists, Sapphire Coast Music Society, Vivace Berrima, SMAC Cooma, Mallacoota recital series, and St Stephen’s lunchtime concerts. She has been the recipient of awards across solo, art song, chamber and online digital content and released her first solo album in 2023 “Enfantines I” on the MOVE label.
ABOUT ISABELLE
Hailing from Brisbane, Isabelle Watson is a violinist and performer scholar creating music in both mainstream and historically-informed performance styles (and everything in between!). She obtained a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours from the University of Queensland in 2023, where she learnt violin
with Adam Chalabi and Natsuko Yoshimoto and wrote a musicological thesis under the supervision of Dr Simon Perry. Issie has gained a breadth of orchestral experience in recent years. She was Principal Second Violin of Queensland Youth Symphony in 2023, where she notably performed in the Musikverein (Vienna), Laeiszhalle (Hamberg) and Esplanade Concert Hall (Singapore) as part of a successful international tour. She has toured with the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra as an Emerging Artist, and has been concertmaster of their youth orchestra program, Young Mannheim Symphonists, from 2022 to 2024.
Solo and chamber music performance are also central to her musical life – during her undergraduate studies, Issie was the winner of the Pollett String Prize and 4MBS Musica Viva Chamber Music Prize. Issie currently learns with Dr Elizabeth Layton (modern violin) and Rachael Beesley (historical violin) and is pursuing practice-led postgraduate research at the University of Adelaide, assimilating nineteenth-century expressive practices into performances of Robert Schumann’s violin works on modern instruments. In 2024, she was the recipient of the Elder Conservatorium Prize for Excellence in Postgraduate Research.
ABOUT STERLING
Sterling Rieck, born and raised in Adelaide, began playing violin at age six and transitioned to viola in high school with support from Martin Butler OAM. He is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Music Advanced, Classical Performance degree at the University of Adelaide under the tutelage of Stephen King. Previously, he studied at the University of Queensland with Professor Patricia Pollett. During his studies he was the recipient of the Howard and Gladys Sleath Scholarship as well as the St Leo’s College Music Achievement Scholarship. Sterling achieved his AMusA in 2021, winning the AUSTA String Award, and has won various AMEB grade prizes and Adelaide Eisteddfod prizes.
He was a member of the Adelaide Youth Orchestras for over 10 years and has participated in multiple AYO National Music Camps. He was a member of the Queensland Youth Symphony Orchestra and has held principal positions in both the Elder Conservatorium Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, which led to being the recipient of the Mrs Arno Pontt (May Gepp) Prize in 2024. He is a founding member of the Piruli String Quartet, which won the Flinders Quartet mentorship prize in Musica Viva’s 2021 Strike a Chord competition, leading to an interstate tour in 2022. He is very excited to have been selected to play in the Australian Youth Orchestra’s 2025 Summer Season and International Tour to Europe, which will see him play in some of the greatest concert halls in the world.
ABOUT CHIARA
Chiara Kelle studies cello at the Elder Conservatorium of Music under Edith Salzmann. She previously studied at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School under Josephine Vains, alongside studying Alexander Technique with Robert Schubert. In 2024, Chiara placed 2nd in the 2024 Recitals Australia Lunchtime Series Finals and was a recipient of the Cowan Family Grant. In 2023 Chiara was invited to perform live on radio for 3MBS The Talent, performed at the International Women’s Day Gala Dinner for Nillumbik Shire, played with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and was the recipient of the Zonta Francis Quinn Encouragement Award. In 2022, Chiara completed her LMusA with distinction. Chiara frequently performs in various community concerts as well as participating in masterclasses and many chamber music projects.