THE PERFORMERS

Skye McIntosh is the founder and Artistic Director of the Australian Haydn Ensemble - now in its eleventh year. This audacious undertaking is a testament to Skye’s musicianship and entrepreneurial spirit.

AHE, known for its innovative and ambitious programming, was delighted to perform at the Adelaide Festival and Canberra International Music Festival in 2022 and 2023, as well as continuing to tour to Canberra and across regional New South Wales each year.

Skye attended the Royal Academy of Music, London, the Queensland Conservatorium and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, has made numerous concert appearances as soloist and director, and has performed internationally with the Australian Haydn Quartet at The Juilliard School. She has also toured nationally with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, as well as performing with the Orchestra of the Antipodes (Pinchgut Opera) and the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra.

ABC Classics will soon be releasing AHE’s third CD, featuring Skye performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto in G major.

Skye is playing a violin by Tomaso Eberle, 1770, Naples.

Matthew is a concertmaster, soloist and core member of some of the world’s leading period instrument ensembles. He has been a regular member of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and concertmaster of the Orchestra of Antipodes (Pinchgut Opera) since 2006. In 2010 he moved to The Netherlands where he studied Baroque violin at The Royale Conservatoire of The Hague and worked with leading European ensembles including De Nederlandse Bachvereniging and Les Talens Lyriques (France). He is a founding member of the Sydney-based ensemble The Muffat Collective.

Matthew enjoys teaching baroque violin at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as well as performing with a variety of international ensembles and festivals in Australia and Europe. Committed to producing a unique and individual sound based on historical performance practices, Matthew believes that seventeenth and eighteenth-century music is full of vitality and emotions that speak to us now, as much as they did in the past.

Matt is playing a violin by David Christian Hopf, 1760, Quittenbach.

Hailing from the east coast of the United States, American violist Karina Schmitz has settled in Sydney and is thrilled to be immersed in the rich and vibrant musical scene in Australia. In addition to performing with the Australian Haydn Ensemble, she is principal violist with Orchestra of the Antipodes (Pinchgut Opera), and has performed with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, Van Diemen’s Band, Salut! Baroque, and Ensemble Galante. In the United States, Karina was principal violist of the Handel & Haydn Society in Boston, principal violist of Apollo’s Fire in Cleveland, principal violist of the Carmel Bach Festival in California, and founding violinist/violist with New York-based seventeenthcentury ensemble ACRONYM.

Karina holds viola performance degrees from New England Conservatory of Music (Boston) and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her early music studies began as an undergraduate at Oberlin Conservatory with Marilyn McDonald, David Breitman, and Miho Hashizume, and she continued her training in the Apollo’s Fire Apprentice Program.

Karina is playing a viola by Francis Beaulieu, 2011, Montreal after Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza, 1793, Milan.

James is a Sydney-based violist who has performed with many of Australia’s leading ensembles including the Australian Haydn Ensemble, Orchestra of Antipodes (Pinchgut Opera), Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Sydney Dance Company, and as principal viola with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. As a champion of new Australian music, James has premiered, commissioned and created many new works over the years with groups like Ensemble Offspring, as Artistic Director of the Aurora Festival of Living Music and as Co-Director of The Noise String Quartet.

James holds a Master of Arts in Classical String Performance, a Graduate Diploma in Arts Management, and is a graduate of ANAM.

James is playing a viola by Warren Nolan-Fordham, 2013, Melbourne after Gasparo da Salo, 16thc.