Special Mother’s Day Trio Concert performed by Ayesha Gough, Katherine Hopkins and Hugh Won, featuring Franz Schubert‘s Trio No. 2 in E flat Major for Piano, Violin and Cello.
Ayesha Gough – Piano
Australian pianist Ayesha Gough is developing her own style grounded in strong traditional concepts with an inherent interest in the unique and engaging. A strong passion for new music, particularly that of Australian composers, has seen her premiere new works in 2016 and 2017 by Klotz and Yedid, and collaborate with Klotz for the premiere of Midnight Rain in 2018.
First prize-winner at the 2015 Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, Ayesha performed with the Russian National Orchestra in December 2018, under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev, as part of a concert held in memory of Lev Vlassenko. She has also performed with the Queensland Symphony, the Queensland Conservatorium Symphony, and the Queensland Pops Orchestra under such conductors as Edvard Tchivzhel, Nicholas Braithwaite, and Daniel Carter. Her recital opportunities have taken her throughout Australia, as well as New Zealand, Italy, Japan, and China.
Ayesha studied under Oleg Stepanov for 10 years, both at a pre-tertiary and tertiary level at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. It is this period of study to which she attributes the foundation of her pianistic values, both in terms of the school of piano passed on by her teacher, and the gradual encouragement by other lecturers to explore new mediums. Throughout 2018, she continued study in Italy with Boris Petrushansky at the Accademia Pianistica Internazionale “Incontri col Maestro”. In 2020 she graduated from the Royal College of Music, London, with a Masters with Distinction. At RCM she studied with Gordon Fergus-Thompson and Andrew Zolinsky whilst undertaking research concerned with pushing the boundaries of the piano recital. She will continue this avenue of research within a Doctorate commencing in 2022 at RCM.
She has been awarded the Theme and Variations Foundation Award, the Brisbane Club Award, the QCGU Postgraduate Prize, the Ena Williams Award, the Joyce Campbell Lloyd Scholarship, the Allison/Henderson Scholarship, and in early 2017 she participated in the Hamamatsu International Piano Academy. Ayesha has been supported by Variety, the Children’s Charity, of which she is an International Ambassador.
Hugh Won – Violin
Hugh studied violin from the age of five, and obtained his Associate Diploma when he was 14 while studying at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Hugh won the National Youth Concerto Competition in 1992. He was a finalist in the 2MBS-FM Young Performers Award and a state finalist in the ABC Young Performers Award. Hugh was one of the youngest members of the Australian Youth Orchestra and took part in 7 international concert tours. He was also part of the Camerata Australia and held the position of Concertmaster of the Sydney Youth Orchestra for 2 years. Professionally, Hugh worked in the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and was in the Sydney production of the musicals Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon. Hugh now performs regularly with the Northern Rivers Symphony Orchestra and Gold Coast Chamber Orchestra. He is a local Gold Coast-Tweed orthopaedic surgeon in his spare time.
Katherine Hopkins – Cello
In 2005 cellist Katherine Hopkins performed Peter Sculthorpe’s Requiem for Cello Alone at the Queensland Conservatoriumto critical acclaim. Sculthorpe himself remarked that her playing “was wondrous and so assured in the way that it covered an enormous range of emotion…Rarely have I heard [the Requiem] played so well”.
Katherinebegan her cello studies with Nelson Cooke at the Canberra Institute of the Arts, where she received a full scholarship. At 14 she gained her Licentiate Diploma of Music and was a professional member of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Katherine moved to England in 1992 to study with Douglas Cummings at the Royal Academy of Music. She later won a scholarship to study with Steven Doane at the Royal College of Music where she completed her Performance Degree with Honours.
Returning to Australia in 2000, Katherine is an experienced and dedicated teacher and has taught at many prestigious schools in Melbourne and on the Gold Coast as well as running a busy and successful private teaching studio.
She was the principal cellist for Camerata, Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra for seven years and has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria and The Queensland Orchestra.