Penrith Symphony Orchestra

Catherine McCorkill | clarinet
Catherine has toured nationally as a soloist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and has performed concerti with most of the Australian Symphony Orchestras. Regularly appearing as Principal Clarinettist with the ACO since 1994, she has also played as guest principal with the Melbourne, Sydney and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria.

Since 1995 she has been a member of the Australia Ensemble, resident at UNSW and touring throughout Australia and internationally. She has also toured as a guest artist with the Australian String Quartet and appeared at major chamber music festivals.

Originally from Perth, Catherine graduated with the Performance Prize from the Canberra School of Music, before receiving a Churchill Fellowship to undertake further study in Europe and the USA. Catherine has held positions including principal clarinet in the Queensland Philharmonic, and Lecturer in Clarinet at the WA Conservatorium (as a member of Ensemble Vasse) and the Victorian College of the Arts.

Catherine was appointed Lecturer in Woodwind (Clarinet) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2006, and since 2005 has been a guest tutor at the Australian National Academy of Music, Melbourne.
In 2007 Catherine premiered two new works by Nigel Westlake and Andrew Ford, both commissioned for the Australia Ensemble, with whom she has also recorded the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms on the Tall Poppies label.

Jiajing (Melody) Wang | violin
Jiajing (Melody) Wang began studying violin with her father at the age of four, and gave her first performance aged six. Two years later, she won the first prize in a Chinese National Competition. She was a scholarship holder at the Shanghai Conservatory from 1996 to 2003.

Jiajing has performed in Canada, Poland, Russia, USA, China, France and Australia, and in 2002 she took part in a master class with Itzhak Perlman. In 2004, she was awarded third prize in the senior group in the Russian Novosibirsk International Violin Competition and went on to study in the USA for a year with Charles Avhsharian and Ruggiero Ricci.

Jiajing won the Overall Outstanding prize and Best Performer with Orchestra in the Sydney Concerto Competition in 2005 and in 2006 she won first prize in the Violin section of McDonald’s Performing Arts Challenge Competition. She is now a scholarship student at Australian Institute of Music, where she studies with Professor Peter Zhang.

Penelope Mills | soprano
Penelope Mills holds degrees from the Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester) and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Since her return to Australia, she has performed extensively with the Sydney Philharmonia, Sydney Concert Orchestra, SBS Youth Orchestra, Willoughby Symphony and Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society. Her repertoire includes Carmina Burana, Bach B Minor Mass and Passions, Poulenc Gloria, Handel Messiah, Beethoven Symphony No. 9 and Choral Fantasia, Mozart and Fauré Requiems, Vaughan Williams Pilgrim’s Journey and Dona Nobis Pacem, Mozart Mass in C, CPE Bach Magnificat, Pergolesi Stabat Mater, Vivaldi Gloria, as well as Ib Norholm’s Impressions of the Little Mermaid (Sydney Festival), works by Kaiji Saariaho (The Seymour Group) and The Earth that Fire Touches by John Peterson.

Equally at home on the operatic stage, Penelope has performed roles including Elettra in Idomeneo, Euridice in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Venus in Dardanus (all for Pinchgut Opera); Fiordiligi, Gretel and First Lady (Pacific Opera); Tatyana (Onegin, Stowe Opera, UK); and Susanna
(Le Nozze di Figaro), Nedda (I Pagliacci) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni) all for the RNCM.

Penelope’s recent engagements have included her American debut recital in Washington DC, and La Rondine with SSO. In 2007/08, concert engagements include Vaughan Williams Sinfonia Antartica and Rachmaninov Vocalise, both with SSO, Bach’s St John Passion with TQO, Messiah with Sydney Philharmonia and Mozart Requiem with the Sydney Chamber Choir.

Clemens Leske | piano
One of Australia’s most distinguished pianists, Clemens Leske has appeared as a soloist with the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras and The Queensland Orchestra, under conductors such as Vladimir Spivakov, Nicholas Braithwaite, Muhai Tang and Vernon Handley.

His teachers have been Thea Kriek, Noreen Stokes, Herbert Stessin, Josef Seiger and Alfred Brendel. During his studies at the Juilliard School, New York he appeared at the Lincoln Center in the famed ‘Bang on a Can’ and ‘Focus’ festivals of contemporary music and won numerous prizes and awards, including the ABC Young Performer of the Year, the David Paul Landa Memorial Scholarship (Australia), and the Hattori Award (London).

Clemens has performed with the Australian String Quartet, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Moscow Virtuosi and at the Barossa International, Huntington, Spring and Adelaide festivals. He performed the Schumann piano concerto with the Bangkok Symphony in a birthday concert the King of Thailand, has released three discs of solo piano and chamber music, and has recorded extensively for Australian radio stations ABC-FM, 2MBS and 5UV.

In 2005, Clemens gave his London debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.1, and appears again with the LPO at the Eastbourne Festival in 2008. His newly formed The Sydney Trio, with violinist Michael Dauth and cellist Michael Goldschlager, has concerts planned around Australia and Japan.

He is currently an associate lecturer in ensemble studies and on the keyboard faculty at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.