Alana Blackburn

Australia

Photo: Paul Leenhouts

Australian recorder player Alana Blackburn has performed as a soloist and chamber musician with a number of notable ensembles including The Royal Wind Music, Salut! Baroque, The Bell Shakespeare Company, The Sydney Consort, The Tall Poppeas, The Sydneian Bach Choir, La Folia, The Sydney Conservatorium Early Music Ensemble, Manly-Warringah Symphony Orchestra and Bellatrix: The Australian Recorder Quartet, with which she has also toured Queensland and New Zealand as well as performing on Radio NZ and 2GB Sydney. Alana was also a founding member of Batalla Famossa, Australia’s leading youth recorder ensemble, which toured New Zealand and recorded their debut CD in 1998.

After completing a Bachelor of Music (performance) degree with First Class Honours at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2004, Alana was awarded a University of Sydney Postgraduate Award to continue with a Master of Music (performance) degree specialising in contemporary Japanese compositions for recorder under the instruction of Hans-Dieter Michatz.

Throughout her studies, Alana has been awarded the Mary Patricia Bell Grant for outstanding Achievement, the John Ellyard Memorial Scholarship, the Margaret Henderson Award and Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarships. As part of the early music ensemble La Folia, they were awarded the Wal Hardwick Memorial Award for chamber music in 2005, and with her recorder quartet Bellatrix was awarded the same scholarship twice, in 2006 and 2008.

Alana has had lessons and master classes with distinguished recorder icons; Walter van Hauwe and Paul Leenhouts (The Netherlands), Gerd Lünenbürger and Ulrike Volkhardt (Germany), Eva Legene and John Tyson (USA), David Bellugi (Italy), Piers Adams and Ashley Solomon (UK). As a teacher, she has lectured in teaching techniques and harmony at the JMC Academy in Sydney and also appears regularly as a tutor at recorder and orchestral workshops throughout Australia including the Sydney Recorder Society meetings and the New England Conservatorium of Music, Armidale.

With the help of The Ian Potter Cultural Trust and the PPCA Performers’ Trust, Alana is currently residing in The Netherlands and studying with Paul Leenhouts at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.

Alana Blackburn