Ukrainian-Australian violinist Markiyan Melnychenko has been described as “an artist of patrician sensibility, spectacular technique”, and “possessing an extraordinary combination of bravura, brains and elegance”. He has served as Lecturer in Violin at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and Principal 1st Violin with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra. Awarded the Dr Iain C. Medgett Churchill Fellowship in 2019, he has performed in 17 countries including solo performances in New York (Alice Tully Hall), Washington DC (Kennedy Centre), and has made a number of solo appearances with orchestras including performances with the Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra, Kobe City Chamber Orchestra, Collegium Musicum, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Corpus Medicorum and Orchestra Victoria. He has been broadcast on ABC Classic FM, 3MBS FM and Radio NZ, and has commercially released recordings on the Tall Poppies (2019) and Naxos (2020) labels.

Richard Davis has been a regular conductor of the BBC Philharmonic and has conducted televised BBC Proms concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. His recent conducting engagements have included concerts with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He is known for his wide-ranging repertoire, allowing him to conduct projects across many genres – from television soundtracks and Family Concerts to recording avant-garde world premieres and performing the symphonies of Shostakovich and Mahler. Richard is also in great demand, conducting the top professional orchestras, at major rock events – online, on television and on national radio – with chart-topping groups such as The 1975 and Clean Bandit. The former recently won the BBC Music Award for ‘Best Live Performance of 2016’ and the latter was subsequently made into a Warner Music CD and DVD – New Eyes (special edition) that stayed in the top 40 UK Album Charts for months.