Conductor Brendan Cooper

Brendan Cooper is a music teacher and head of Creative and Performing Arts at Carlingford High School. He has a deep love of music and enjoys sharing this passion with others. He values community music making and has been conductor of the Beecroft Orchestra for the past nine years. His interest in conducting developed gradually having enjoyed playing violin in orchestras since the age of ten.
The highlight of his training was conducting the Tasmanian and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras as a part of Symphony Australia’s Conductor Development Program under the mentorship of international maestros Johannes Fritzsch and Christopher Seaman. He has also taken part in conducting courses lead by Harry Spence-Lyth, Graham Abbott and Jerry Nowak, studied with Henryk Pisarek, Romano Crivici, Varga Piroska and Max McBride and had workshop sessions with Stephen Williams, David Barg and George Torbay.
Brendan has conducted a number of other community ensembles including The Occasional Performing Sinfonia, the Northern Sydney Youth Orchestra and String Sinfonia, and the Joubert Singers. Through the Department of Education’s ‘Arts Unit’, he has conducted hundreds of high school and primary school students in orchestras, string ensembles, choirs and stage bands at a regional and state level – including Primary Choral Concerts, the Arts North Music Festival and Senior State Music Camp.

Conductor Adrian Tan

Adrian was our guest co-conductor of concert 1 on the 3rd of April 2011.

Adrian Tan (b. 1977) graduated with honours in Theatre Studies from the National University of Singapore. His significant participation in Music and Theatre has distinguished him as a unique multi-disciplinary artist with an impressive repertoire of work and achievements in Singapore and overseas. He graduated with honours in Theatre Studies from the National University of Singapore. He studied conducting with Harold Farberman, Robert Gutter and Ovidiu Balan, and also participated in masterclasses with Gunther Herbig, and in wind and choral conducting with Jan Cober and Hans Leenders respectively. A recipient of the prestigious National Arts Council (Singapore) Overseas Scholarship, he is currently completing his Masters in Music Studies (Conducting) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music studying with Imre Pallo, Stephen Mould and Neil McEwan.

Adrian has appeared regularly as a guest conductor with the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra (Vietnam), the Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra (Singaoire) and the Beecroft Orchestra (Australia). In 2010, he was the Assistant Choir Master of the Willoughby Symphony Choir (Australia). He also served as the assistant conductor to Maestro Pallo in the production of Otto Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor, and as the Musical Director of Darius Milhaud’s Les Malheurs d’Orphee at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Engagements in 2012 include appearances with the Mosman Orchestra (Sydney, Australia), at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and return engagements with the Filharmonica “Mihail Jora” di Bacau (Romania), Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra (Singapore) and the Beecroft Orchestra (Sydney, Australia). He was appointed Music Director of the Sydney University Wind Orchestra for 2011.

Conductor Alexander Colding Smith

Alexander Colding Smith is currently undertaking a Masters’ degree in Conducting at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

For two years he took part in the prestigious Symphony Services International Conductor Development Program.
During this time he conducted the Adelaide,Melbourne and Queensland Symphony Orchestras and studied under SebastianLang-Lessing, Christopher Seaman, Johannes Fritzsch, Arvo Volmer and Bernard Labadie.

This year he will be assisting in performances of Britten’s War Requiem. Alexander will also be participating in the “Realizing Rossini” Summer Program at the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), Cincinnati under the tutelage of Mark Gibson.

In addition to conducting, Alexander received a First Class Honours Degree from the University of Queensland in 2010, where he studied the viola under Patricia Pollett. During this time he was also a member of the Australian Youth Orchestra.