Committee

President

Mark Xiao
MMus (Perf), MMus (Spec. Soloist), MMus (New Music)

Mark has won numerous competitions and awards throughout Australia including the Leslie Barklamb Scholarships, the 3MBS Young Performer of the Year Award and the Australian Youth Classical Music Competition. In 2006, he was the winner of the Open Flute Competition at the Australian Flute Festival. Internationally, Mark was the recipient of the British Flute Society Award, the Zangger-Weber Stiftung from Switzerland and in 2012, he received the Third Prize and the Audience Prize at the August-Everding Music Competition in Munich, Germany.

Mark began learning the flute at the age of 10. At the age of 13, he received his AMusA and in the following year, Mark received his LMusA with Distinction. Since then, Mark has obtained a Bachelor of Music Performance from the Australian National University, a Master of Music Performance and Specialised Master of Music (Soloist) from the Zurich University of the Arts and a Master of Music in Contemporary Music from the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich whilst studying with numerous internationally renowned teachers including Virginia Taylor, Vernon Hill, Trevor Wye, Matthias Ziegler and Andrea Lieberknecht.

Mark was a guest member of the Tonhalle-Orchestra Zurich and has collaborated with several notable composers including Helmut Lachenmann, Beat Furrer, William Blank and Heinz Holliger; and conductors such as Kent Nagano, Lionel Bringuier, Roland Kluttig, Zsolt Nagy, David Zinman, Werner Ehrhardt, Douglas Boyd and Nello Santi. As a soloist, Mark has performed with the Bach Collegium München and the Filharmonie Hradec Králové.

Mark has been teaching and performing throughout Australia since returning in 2017. He was the Artist-in-Residence at Flutes & Flutists until the end of 2022, when he assumed the role of Managing Director. Mark is now a Director of the Australian Flute Festival and President of the Flute Society of NSW.

Treasurer

Lisa Cartwright
BMus, BA(Hons), LMusA, AMusA (Dist), GradDipCouns, CertTESOL(Dist), CertIVTAE

Lisa has been involved in music education for almost two decades.  She is a private studio flute teacher, based in Randwick, and has also worked in several schools around Sydney. Although working one to one with flute students is her main focus, she has been a Teaching Artist for The Song Room, a Kindermusik educator and a school band and ensembles director. 

Lisa’s first love is Western art music, but she has a keen interest in many different genres and sings with a vocal trio with a wide range of repertoire. She will perform at this year’s National Folk Festival, as a co-artist (voice and flute) with singer-songwriter Christina Mimmocchi and cellist John Napier.

Lisa has also worn other professional “hats”, being a trained counsellor and a teacher of English to adults, but the flute, and her love of sharing music-making with students, keeps calling her back.

Lisa studied at the NSW Conservatorium of Music with James Kortum and Michael Scott, and then undertook her final year of performance studies at Sydney University, to facilitate the opportunity to gain an Honours Degree in English literature. She has a passionate interest in ongoing education and in bringing out the best in her students.

Secretary

Merryl Neille
DMA

Merryl Neille (DMA in flute performance, University of Michigan) has taught, researched and performed in South Africa, the Netherlands, Canada, the United States and Australia. Her eighteen-year long career as a professional flautist saw Merryl as principal flute of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, guest principal flutist of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and a member of several international ensembles.

As a composer, Merryl was a prize winner of the Flute Society of NSW Composition Competition for Winter Solstice for Flute and Piano (2020). She was commissioned to write Sighs and Silence (2021) for Karen North's publication of Lyrical Flute Legends.

Merryl has been a woodwind clinician at youth music programmes around the world, and teaches the flute and piano at the Lane Cove Cultural and Music Centre and online.

Merryl's administrative experience comes from working in customer service in Vancouver, Canada, and in administrative support at Bedford CA Chartered Accountants in Sydney. She is thrilled to combine her administrative abilities with her love of the flute at Flutes & Flutists.

Grants Officer

Jocelyn Fazzone

Jocelyn Edey Fazzone is a Sydney born performer and teacher of both flute and piano. Her studies under the renowned teachers Nancy Salas, Erica Booker (piano), Michael Scott, David Cubbin, Maxence Larrieu and Robert Willoughby (flute) were undertaken at Sydney University and Sydney Conservatorium, Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva, Switzerland, and Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, USA.

Jocelyn has performed in the Sydney, Tasmanian & Queensland Symphony Orchestras, the Australian Opera & Ballet Orchestra & the Collegium Academicum Orchestra. She currently teaches part-time at the Sydney Conservatorium and Wesley Institute; is the Woodwind Advisor and Senior examiner for the AMEB NSW; and is a regular performer of chamber music with Windfall Sextet, with Moran/Fazzone duo, and performs as the regular Associate Artist with flautist Janet Webb.  Jocelyn is one of the leading teachers of flute in NSW, having been awarded the AMEB Shield for achieving the highest student results on 5 occasions since 2004.

She has released 2 CDs to date as Associate Artist to leading Australian flautists; she has recently co- published a large collection of flute studies; and is currently co- authoring a volume on flute teaching methods for new teachers.

EDUCATION Coordinator

Jude Huxtable
BA, A Mus A, LTCL

Jude Huxtable began her lifelong love of the flute when, as a primary school student, she heard Victor McMahon play the Carnival of Venice. She eventually studied flute with Peter Richardson, Nicola Snekker and Margaret Crawford.

Jude has taught flute at Abbotsleigh school for the past 35 years, whilst also maintaining a private studio. She has recently become an AMEB Examiner.

A long commitment to the NSW Flute Society has seen her organise or help to organise a number of Flute Eisteddfods and, with Jocelyn Fazzone, many Teachers Form s dedicated to the provision of some form of community and professional development for the flute teaching fraternity of Sydney.

She plays with Sydney Wind Symphony and occasionally with Kuringai Philharmonic Orchestra

EISTEDDFOD Coordinator

Samantha Mailer
MMus (Perf)

Samantha Mailer (née Joseph) has performed in concerts in Australia, Scandinavia, Russia, the United Kingdom and Italy, and live on ABC Classic FM, ArtSound FM and Sydney Live 2GB 873AM.  Samantha divides her time performing regularly as flute soloist and chamber musician.

Samantha has been a recipient of several scholarships and grants including a Friends of the School of Music travel grant, Domann Flute Scholarship, ANU Head of Music School grant, Associazione Rome Festival and Rome Festival Orchestra, Ltd. Subsidy, prizewinner of the ANU School of Music Chamber Music Competition, and NSW Encore Award.

Following a Masters of Music degree at the Australian National University, Samantha travelled to participate in master classes and private study with the leading flautists around the world. This included a short residency at the prestigious Oxford Flute School, and a contract with the Rome Festival Orchestra.

In addition to her love of classical music performance, Samantha is equally comfortable exploring a wide range of styles and sounds, experimenting with modern works and 20th century techniques.

Her philanthropic work sees Samantha regularly performing at fundraising events and charity concerts, as well as being an active committee member of the Flute Society of NSW.

Samantha currently works regularly as Principal Flautist with both the orchestra of Sydney Independent Opera, and the Sydney Contemporary Orchestra, and is a Preferred Player with the Australian Discovery Orchestra.

Derek Galloway

Born in Kilmarnock Scotland in 1963, Derek started playing the flute at the age of fourteen. He studied flute with Shelia Cochrane at Napier University Edinburgh and in 2001 began studies with Sheena Gordon (Scottish Chamber Orchestra) , Derek has attended and played in masterclasses with such players asWissam Boustany, David Nicolson, Lorna McGhee, Paul Edmond-Davis, Peter Lloyd, Ian Clarke and Sir James Galway.

Derek was founder member and played with "Zonda Flutes" an award winning flute trio based in Glasgow and played professionally for many years in the UK.

Since moving to Australia in 2008 Derek has quickly established himself as a popular music educator and flute teacher , he teachesin Sydney schools and is in demand as a flute tutor for band and orchestral camps. 

In 2009 he was appointed director of the recorder programme at Lane Cove Public School. And along with other Sydney based flute teachers has started "Flute Connections" an organisation who provide professional educational workshops in NSW. He has recently opened his own studio and performing venue:SoundHub in Lane Cove.

Derek is an Associate of Trinity College of Music London and has a Diploma inMusic from the Open University. He is a member of the "British Flute Society" ,  "The National Flute Association of America"and is membership secretary of "The Flute Society of NSW". He also plays flute and piccolo in the Marrickville Symphony Orchestra and is soon to appear in the new Baz Luhrmann movie "The Great Gatsby".