Jenny Duck-Chong

Jenny (email) has established herself as a versatile and intelligent musician who works in many spheres - from early music and opera to art song and contemporary compositions. She is sought after by Sydney's finest vocal ensembles and has performed extensively with Cantillation, Pinchgut Opera and Opera Australia. She was a guest artist with the Song Company from 2005-2008 and performed and toured extensively with them. Equally comfortable as a soloist, she has worked with conductors such as Reinbert de Leeuw, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Christopher Hogwood, Jane Glover, Antony Walker and Mark Shiell, and ensembles as varied as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Philharmonia, Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Ensemble Offspring, the Chinese Virtuosi and the Kevin Hunt Jazz Trio in works by composers ranging from Monteverdi and Bach to Gubaidulina and Crumb. Graduating from Sydney University with a performance major in Baroque practice, she spent many years on the oratorio circuit in performances of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Monteverdi and Purcell as well as performing and recording with the Renaissance Players for eight years. Now active in the field of new music, Jenny has featured in numerous première performances including works by Boyd, Butterley, Edwards, Farr, Gyger, Hair, Page and Whitehead. She is secretary of the New Music Network and the co-founder and artistic director of the new music ensemble Halcyon, now celebrating it's tenth birthday, which has become a driving force in the promotion of new and recent chamber music for voice. With them she has commissioned and premiered many Australian works and has also championed international works by Saariaho, Berkeley, Finnissy, Erkoreka, Beamish, Hui, Andrew and Harris as well as works by many young composers. Career highlights include performing Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna (which she edited), Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Jane Glover and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs & Orchestra, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Richard Gill, a lecture and song recital of Australian composers' settings of the poetry of John Shaw Neilson in Sydney and Canberra with Neilson's biographer Helen Hewson, soloist in Gubaidalina's Now Always Snow in the SSO's The Shock of the New concert series, numerous Australian and world premières with Halcyon, touring northern Western Australia with the Song Company and acclaimed performances of Bach arrangements with the Kevin Hunt Jazz trio. Her recordings credits include mezzo soloist on the ABC Classics recording of Fauré's La Naissance de Venus, the Teddy Tahu Rhodes CD The Voice and Pinchgut Opera's The Fairy Queen and Orfeo, several film and TV scores including The Bank by Alan John, The Song Company's Alpha et Omega and Waltzing Matilda and newest Christmas CDs as well as numerous other recordings with Cantillation and Halcyon's own live recordings and newly released studio CD Cool Black.