Management
Janine Hanrahan
Managing Director
As a professional flautist, Janine has performed extensively throughout Australia and New Zealand with ensembles including: the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, Stonnington Symphony Orchestra, The Geminiani Chamber Orchestra and Ensemble Zauberflöte, as well as the Australian Discovery Orchestra (ADO).
She made her recording debut with the Melbourne Symphony in 2003 recording The Witchlight (for Flute and String Orchestra). In 2009, she performed the Nielsen Flute Concerto in Europe with the Dinu Lipatti Philharmonic and in 2012 performed the Arnold Concerto No. 1 for Flute and Strings with Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra in Melbourne. In 2016, she performed with the Synchron Stage Orchestra and the Bratislava Studio Symphony Orchestra on the critically received 2018 release of the orchestral music of Grammy winner, 5-time Grammy nominee and seven-time Emmy nominee Nan Schwartz (Divine Art, dda 25165). In 2019, Janine was invited to perform with the orchestra in a production of Verdi’s Don Carlos with State Opera Stara Zagora, Bulgaria.
As Managing Director of the ADO, Janine is committed to the development of unique, ground-breaking innovations in audience development and engagement strategies for orchestras in the 21st-Century. She was an invited speaker at Classical NEXT (C:N 2017) in Rotterdam where she demonstrated the interaction possibilities of live-streaming with online audience engagement experiences as used by the ADO for its online streaming concert events. In her management capacity overseeing the success of this new orchestral venture, Janine brings her long-held commitment to expand genuine opportunities for orchestral musicians across the country.
Janine is also one of Australia’s most experienced teachers of the Flute, working at Scotch College and Trinity Grammar School in Melbourne.
Artistic
Kevin Purcell Ph.D., M.F.A., M.Mus., M.M. (Bard), PGDip.Ed., GDipM., B.A.
Principal Conductor
Kevin Purcell is one of Australia’s most distinguished and awarded orchestral and opera conductors. Currently, Kevin serves as musical director for the Australian Discovery Orchestra – one of the world’s most innovative orchestral ensembles – whilst maintaining an active freelance career in the USA. He is a member of The Recording Academy and the Dramatists Guild. Kevin is managed by Francine Fletcher at Fletcher Associates (UK) and William Reinert Associates, Inc. (USA).
He originally studied conducting at the Moscow Conservatory with Gennady Rozhdestvensky (1992), with subsequentgraduate conducting studies at the Janácek Academy of Music (JAMU) with Otakar Trhlík, culminating with a Masters degree in orchestral conducting at Bard College (NY) under the late Harold Farberman. Additionally, Kevin studied Opera conducting with British conductor and Glyndebourne music director, Myer Fredman.
Awards include: GOI-IES Scholarship (2021); The American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award (2019); Tait Memorial Trust Award (London, U.K.,1996); Australian Music Foundation in London Sir Charles Mackerras Prize (1995 & 1994); Opera Australia Willem van Otterloo Scholarship (1993); Bellhouse Conducting Prize (Sydney, 1993).
A new record of the music of Nan Schwartz, 5-time Grammy nominee and Grammy Award winner, and 7-time Emmy nominated composer was released in March 2018 on the Divine Art Recording Group label to unanimous acclaim industry-wide with independent critical reviews received from BBC Music Magazine, Fanfare and American Record Guide amongst others.
The 16 STORIES album showcases the upcoming generation of ASCAP musical theatre songwriters, as recorded by the Australian Discovery Orchestra, and was released worldwide in March 2022 on Broadway Records™.
Also in preparation is a new series of premiere recordings of one-Act television operas commissioned throughout the 1950s and 1960s by the BBC including works by Sir Malcolm Arnold, Sir Arthur Bliss and C. Armstrong Gibbs. The first of these, Parasol, by Sir Malcolm Arnold is planned for release in 2024.
In Europe, Kevin has conducted Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Paris Conservatory, Hradec Králove Filharmonie, Beethoven Chamber Orchestra, Königsgrätz Philharmonic, West Bohemia Symphony Orchestra, Georgian State Television and Radio Orchestra, Dinu Lipatti Philarmonic and the Silesian State Opera amongst others.
Drawn to contemporary musical theatre whilst living in London, Kevin’s introduction to West End theatre came courtesy of Cameron Mackintosh and the Really Useful Group when invited to take over musical direction of the long-running production of CATS at the New London Theatre in the mid-90s. In July 2003 Kevin renewed his association for RUG as musical director for the South Korean premiere of this show. More recently Kevin has conducted WICKED at London’s Apollo Victoria theatre and was the original musical director for the first national UK/Eire tour in 2013.
An award-winning musical theatre composer and arranger in his own right, Kevin is much sought after for his American Songbook orchestrations. His arrangements have been performed by leading orchestras including the National Symphony Orchestra (Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), New York City Opera, New York Pops, Boston Pops and by artists including, Marvin Hamlisch, Stephen Schwartz, Kristin Chenoweth, Liz and Ann Hampton Callaway, Raúl Esparza, Victor Garber, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, and numerous other A-list Broadway artists.
His musical, The Stranger from Seville, with book and lyrics by British screenwriter Victor Kazan, received rave reviews in its first limited season Off-Broadway production in July 2014. It was similarly selected for the 2018 Florida Festival of New Musicals at the WinterPark Playhouse, Orlando (Aug. 23-16) followed by a major industry workshop in New York. Kevin and Victor have recently completed work on Castle Gillian, a love-story by revered Irish storyteller, Maurice Walsh, author of ‘The Quiet Man’.
