Francesco Celata, Roger Benedict, Daniel Herscovitch
Biographie Francesco Celata, Roger Benedict, Daniel Herscovitch
Francesco Celata
joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1993 as Associate Principal Clarinet.
He has appeared as soloist on several occasions, including performances of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, Krommer's Double Clarinet Concertoa concerto written for him by Gordon Kerry.
More recently he appeared as soloist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, under David Robertson at The National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing performing the virtuoso concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra, ‘Gnarly Buttons’ by American composer John Adams. He has also appeared as soloist with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and the Auckland Philharmonia.
On several occasions between 2003 and 2009 he appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra as guest Principal Clarinet, performing on international tours and recordings. More recently he appeared as guest Principal Clarinet with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London touring internationally and recording with them. Frank plays Principal Clarinet with the Australian World Orchestra, comprising 110 of Australia's leading musicians drawn from 47 orchestras around the world. He also serves on the board of the orchestra.
Frank has performed under many of the world’s leading conductors including Lorin Maazel, Ricardo Muti, Sir Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Charles Dutoit and Myun-whun Chung.
Frank is the founding member of one of Sydney's leading chamber ensembles, the Sydney Soloists, consisting of Principal Players from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The group has performed in numerous live national broadcasts for the ABC and has also recorded for them.
He is also a dedicated teacher, and since 1994 has taught clarinet at the Sydney Conservatorium, where he is a Lecturer in Clarinet. He has taught many students who have gone on to leading positions in Australia and around the world. He has given masterclasses at the Shanghai Conservatorium, Trinity College in London, The Australian National Academy of Music and was for several years, the Artistic Director of the Australian International Symphony Orchestra Institute (AISOI). In 2013 he joined the staff of the Conservatorium of Music in Hobart for three years as Lecturer in Orchestral and Chamber Music where he headed the Woodwind department.
Roger Benedict
Benedict’s career has encompassed work as a conductor, soloist, orchestral player, chamber musician and teacher. From 1991 - 2000 principal viola in the Philharmonia Orchestra, London, and following that the same position in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Roger was for nearly 20 years Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony’s internationally acclaimed Fellowship Program. At the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he is an Associate Professor, Roger is Chief Conductor and also heads the viola department.
As a viola soloist he has appeared with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the New London Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra in the UK as well as the Sydney Symphony, Canberra Symphony, New Zealand Symphony and Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa (Japan). He has given solo recitals at venues including London’s Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre, and at major international festivals.
Roger Benedict’s debut recital CD Volupté (Melba), featuring music by Charles Koechlin and Joseph Jongen, was selected as one of the 10 best recordings of 2010 by theclassicalreview.com. His recording of Vaughan Williams’ Flos Campi with the Sydney Symphony was released in 2011, and a disc of music by Hans Gál and Ernst Krenek (Voices in the Wilderness) in 2014, also on the Melba label. Two recordings for ABC Classics/Universal Music followed: A Winter’s Tale, featuring music by Schubert and Schumann with pianist Simon Tedeschi, and, most recently, an album of new arrangements of works of Debussy and Ravel, also with Simon Tedeschi (ARIA-nominated Debussy - Ravel).
A regular guest conductor with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Roger has conducted the orchestra in subscription concerts at the Sydney Opera House and on tour. He enjoys regular collaborations with other Australian Orchestras (including the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Australian Youth Orchestra), and UK orchestras (including Sinfonia Smith Square, National Youth Orchestra).
Roger has gained admiration for his dedication to outreach and community work – for example through presenting concerts and workshops in schools,prisons and corporate settings, and through organizing major fundraising concerts for charitable causes.
Roger is active as an arranger and editor. His publications for Partitura-Verlag include arrangements of music by Schubert, Mozart and Debussy, and two popular technique books for viola - Scale Up! and Shift Work.
David Herscovitch
studied with Alexander Sverjensky at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Rosl Schmid in Munich. While based in Germany he performed extensively on the continent and in England and toured Australia three times. He also appeared at several important festivals including the Berlin Festival, the Zagreb Biennale and the Saarbrücken Tage der Neuen Musik.
Since returning to Australia he has been active in solo and chamber music, and has appeared at the Adelaide Festival of the Arts, the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Australian Duo Piano Festival, the New Directions Festival and the Festivals of Melbourne and Sydney. He was a regular guest artist at Roger Woodward’s Sydney Spring Festival and has toured for Musica Viva and in New Zealand. He has appeared with Synergy, Flederman, the Song Company and the Australia Ensemble and has toured with The Seymour Group. He was a soloist in the first Australian performance of the Bartók Concerto for Two Pianos and has appeared in concert with Jane Manning, Wanda Wilkomirska, Clemens Leske, Christopher Latham, Geoffrey Gartner, Bernadette Harvey, Benjamin Kopp, Carl Vine and Ole Böhn.
He has toured the USA four times, most recently performing Bach’s Art of Fugue. He has been a regular visitor to Indonesia and his fifth European tour in 2019 took him to Singapore, the UK, Norway and Germany where he performed Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis and included a residency at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.
His solo repertoire ranges from Purcell to Carter and beyond, and includes contemporary Australian, Asian, European and American works, several of which he commissioned and premiered.
His recordings of repertoire from the 17th to the 21st centuries have been released on Toccata Classics, Tall Poppies, CSM, Continuum, Biodiversity, Move and ABC Classics labels. His CD on the Toccata Classics label of music by Roger Smalley was Editor’s Choice in the 2019 Awards issue of Gramophone and his recent CD of music by Peter Dart was praised in the US journal Fanfare as being “stunning” and “brilliant”. A further CD of music by Don Banks was released in 2022 to glowing reviews internationally. and in 2024 a CD of music by Kate Moore followed. A CD of Australian clarinet trios with Francesco Celata and Roger Benedict is scheduled for release in April 2025, followed by a CD of Mozart transcriptions for two pianos by Stephen Yates, with his colleague Clemens Leske. He is currently Associate Professor of Piano at The University of Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
