Blake Parham – Tenor

Blake Parham is a young character tenor who divides his time equally between music research and performance. A young artist at the Lisa Gasteen National Opera School in 2017 and a young artist with Pacific Opera from 2014-15. He holds a masters degree in music from the Elder Conservatorium, is currently completing a PhD at the Sydney Conservatorium, and is a casual music lecturer at the Avondale Conservatorium.

Blake has performed the roles of ‘Toby’ in George Palmer’s Cloudstreet (State Opera SA – Workshop), ‘Remendado’ in Carmen (Queensland Symphony Orchestra), ‘Pedrillo’ in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and ‘Eisenstein’ in Die Fledermaus (Opera Bites), ‘Basilio’ in Le Nozze di Figaro, ‘Vasek’ in The Bartered Bride, and ‘Pluto’ in Orpheus in the Underworld (Rockdale Opera), ‘Goro’ in Madama Butterfly (Opera Projects, Sydney – directed by Cheryl Barker), ‘Monostatos’ in Die Zauberflöte (Opera Laboratory), ‘Tinca’ in Il Tabarro (Beaches Productions), Samuel’ in The Pirates of Penzance (Gilbert and Sullivan Society SA), and ‘The Baker’ in Into the Woods (Elder Conservatorium). He has also appeared in the chorus for several productions with the State Opera of South Australia including Australian premières of Moby Dick and Hamlet and in the Lehrbuben for Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Blake’s concert repertoire includes Handel’s Messiah (Newcastle Cathedral), Dvorak’s Stabat Mater (Illawarra Choral Society), Bach’s Cantata BWV182 (Avondale and Sydney Conservatorium), Haydn’s St Nicholas Mass (Port Stephen’s Singers), Walton’s Façade (Vacation Chamber Orchestra – England), Jenkins’ The Armed Man and Gounod’s St Cecelia Mass (Adelaide Philharmonia), Walton’s Façade (Tour of Southern England with the Vacation Chamber Orchestra), Schubert’s Mass in G (Sydney Conservatorium), Mozart’s Requiem (Sutherland Choral Society and the Central Coast Philharmonia), and Copland’s Old American Songs (Beecroft Orchestra).

Additionally, Blake has appeared in concerts with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the University of St Andrews, the Dundee Cathedral, the Polish Musicians Association (Warsaw), the Barossa Vintage Festival, Opera by Candlelight (Canberra), the Polish Embassy in Canberra, the National Wine Centre, the Macquarie University Orchestra, the Adelaide Fringe Festival, and at the Sydney Opera House. Awards include the George Boland Scholarship, the 5Mbs Young Virtuosi Award, runner up in the Australian Vocal and Concerto Competition in Townsville, runner up in the Arnold Matters Scholarship, and an Arts SA Grant to study with Peter Coleman-Wright. As a researcher, Blake has presented papers at a number of conferences in Europe and Australia and published articles in Scotland, Lithuania, and Poland.

Contact Blake : http://blakeparham.weebly.com/contact.html

The Estivo Trio

Based in Sydney, the Estivo Trio brings together three outstanding young musicians of remarkable talent, passion and experience. Formed with the initiative of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s inaugural Estivo Summer Chamber Music Festival in Verona, Italy, the trio consists of violinist Fox Chan, cellist Jonathan Békés and pianist Ying Ho. Following extensive auditions, they were the only piano trio selected to attend the festival.

The trio made their European debut at the Sala Maffeina, Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, Italy. Their subsequent concerts at the San Fermo, Verona and the Vigeland Museum in Oslo, Norway, were all received with great critical acclaim. After their successful performances in Europe, the trio was soon invited to perform across Asia and Australasia.

In July 2015, Estivo Trio became the only Australian piano trio selected to compete in the 7th Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. The ensemble was one of 8 piano trios chosen from an international field that were auditioned in six cities world-wide. In September, the trio embarked on their first Asia Tour. They gave concerts, masterclasses and workshops in China, Hong Kong and Macau. In China, they performed to full-house of enthusiastic audiences of over 1500 people.

Their performance at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music was so well-received it led to immediate invitation to return the following year. In Macau, they gave educational outreach workshop for secondary school as well as a benefit concert for the Macau Youth Promotion Association. The trio was interviewed by various television stations in China and Macau. Their concert at the Shenzhen Concert Hall was broadcasted on Shenzhen Television News.
Estivo Trio has worked closely with members of the Goldner String Quartet Julian Smiles, Dene Olding, as well as other distinguished musicians including Ian Munro, Timothy Young, Goetz Richter, Ole Böhn, Klaus Marx, Marco Rapetti and Christian Mueller. Their performances have been broadcasted live on ABC Classic-FM and 2MBS-FM Fine Music.

FOX CHAN violin
JONATHAN BÉKÉS cello
YING HO piano