A proud tradition

Elena Xanthoudakis studied at the VCA, University of Melbourne and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, on scholarship, where she received her second Masters of Music with distinction.  Elena also undertook studies in part of the young artist programme at the Maggio Musicale, Firenze and the Harewood Young Artist Programme ENO. Elena was awarded a Solti Foundation Award to undertake Italian language studies in Florence and has participated in masterclasses at the Opera Studio at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome with La Signora Scotto. 

Elena has won numerous first prizes in competitions in Australia and Internationally, including winning the Maria Callas International Grand Prix, and the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg and both the female first-prize and overall Grand prize in the International Adam Didur Opera Singers Competition, Poland. Other International prizes include being a multi-laureate at the Jeunesse Musicales – Voix, Montreal, Canada and is a prize-winner in Placido Domingo’s Operalia.  She  has performed throughout Australia, the UK, Ireland, throughout Italy in concerts and recitals, as well as in Japan, Hong-Kong, St Petersburg, Montreal, Quebec-City, Germany and in the USA. 

Elena gave a Masterclass at McKinnon in 2018. In the photo above she is working with VCE student Chloe James, who is following in Elena's footsteps and now studies Opera at the Melbourne University.

Kirsty initially learned the cello at McKinnon but fell in love with the bass that lived in the store room and the rest, as they say, is history.  The first woman to be appointed as Principal Bass of any Australian professional orchestra, Kirsty received a Churchill Fellowship in 2001 to study historical bass performance in Paris and Rome. She was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the University of Melbourne for her services to Orchestral Music. Passionate about the power of music to create social change, she was recently invited to be a Moorambilla Voices Ambassador, working with young people from rural and regional Australia who are brought together by creative arts.