Doretta Balkizas & Brieley Cutting

Australian violinist Doretta Balkizas recently returned to Australia as the newly appointed Lecturer in Violin at the School of Music, University of Queensland. Having been based in Germany from 2015-2024, Doretta leads a varied life as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. In recent seasons, she has performed, recorded and toured in various ensembles, including the London Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and held the position of associate principal second violin with the Bremer Philharmoniker. Doretta has performed as a concerto soloist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and Nanning Symphony Orchestra (China), and was a finalist in several major Australian competitions, including the 2015 Symphony Australia Young Performer Award and the Dorcas McClean Travelling Scholarship for Violinists, where she was a major prizewinner and received the inaugural Fritz Kreisler Prize. 

As a chamber musician, Doretta has appeared at the International Holland Music Sessions, the Musica Viva Festival and the YellowBarn Music Festival, where she collaborated with Roger Tapping (Juilliard String Quartet) and Donald Weilerstein. In 2018, Doretta received her Master of Music with distinction from the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler", Berlin, having previously completed an undergraduate degree at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as a student of Alice Waten. Doretta is very grateful for the many benefactors, scholarships and awards which have supported her studies, including the George & Margaret Henderson Travelling Scholarship, a scholarship from the DAAD, the Ernest V. Llewellyn Memorial Fund scholarship and a grant from the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. 

Brieley Cutting grew up on a farm in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Her career highlights have been diverse, including being National Keyboard Winner of the Symphony Australia ABC Young Performers Awards and a Fellow of the Winston Churchill Trust, to receiving a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Griffith University and attracting a Creative Sparks Award for her innovative concert series DeClassified Music. Brieley has performed throughout Australia and for organisations such as ABC Classic FM, 4MBS and Musica Viva Australia, with festival appearances in The Piano Mill, Tyalgum and Bangalow Festivals in regional New South Wales, the Festival of Voices at MONA in Tasmania, the Queensland Music Festival and Australian Piano Duo Festivals in Brisbane, and Fringe Festivals in Sydney and Newcastle. She has also performed in European venues, such as in recitals facilitated by the Royal College of Music and Australian Music Foundation, and has collaborated regularly with many leading Australian ensembles such as Ensemble Trivium, Australia Piano Quartet, Topology and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players. As concerto soloist, Brieley has performed with orchestras including the Melbourne Symphony, Queensland Symphony, Melbourne Youth, and the Nizhny-Novgorod Philharmonic. As producer of music events, a recent collaboration has been with composer Mark Oliveiro, their show receiving a nomination for Best in Music at the 2023 Sydney Fringe Festival. Currently based in Sydney, Brieley is Lecturer in Classical Piano at the Australian Institute of Music.