Music Teachers' Association
of New South Wales

David Osborne

Gregory Kinda

Diane Moss

Di Moss has taught music in the Newcastle area since 2004, after graduating from Sydney Conservatorium of Music (BMusStudies).

Her instruments include clarinet, saxophone, flute, piano, piano accordion and organ.

She has experience with all age groups and mentored students through AMEB grade exams, auditions, and HSC performances. Small Covid-safe ensembles for her students are her speciality. Her lessons offer many genres including classical, jazz and popular music.

Di also enjoys playing multi-cultural music on woodwinds and accordion, and has previously performed around local restaurants and festivals in Newcastle.

Karen Shannon

Dr Brett McKern

Brett is an experienced teacher of theoretical and written subjects at all levels (theory, musicianship, music craft) and is available for lessons either face-to-face or via Skype. Brett also teaches composition, pipe organ, and does coaching for university and HSC music students. Brett is an accredited teacher with the MTA. While teaching at all levels, Brett specialises in teaching adults and diploma-level candidates.

Brett teaches by Skype or Zoom or at studios in Gordon or the Southern Highlands.

Brett also specialises in private tutoring for tertiary music students in a range of subjects for all music degree levels. He is happy to give advice on your compositions if preparing for that aspect of AMEB or Trinity College examinations, or submissions for the HSC. Successful students have achieved Licentiate and Associate diplomas in theory, musicianship and composition as well as the Licentiate diploma in organ.

Brett’s former students of organ, theory and composition have gone on to read for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at various conservatoria and universities in Australia and abroad, and a number are now professional musicians. Other students have learned purely for their own enjoyment and sense of satisfaction.

Brett maintains an international career as a composer with his music being performed in at least six countries in Europe and Australasia. Within Australia, his music has been performed in four states and broadcast on radio in three. Brett is also an award-winning composer (Australia & Canada) and has published over sixty works in Australia and abroad. His music has been performed at such prestigious venues as Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, London; and Washington National Cathedral. Brett has been commissioned by professional soloists, liturgical choirs, school choirs and orchestras, the AMEB, and the Song Company, to name a few.

Brett holds degrees and diplomas in music, education, and two doctorates in musical composition. He has lectured at various universities rising to the rank of Adjunct Associate Professor, and examines written music grades and diplomas and online for the AMEB, as well as being called upon to examine university research and performance degrees. Brett has adjudicated multiple composition competitions, and is a Represented Composer of the Australian Music Centre.

Brett has performed as an organist and choir director in four countries, and been recorded for DVD, CD and movie soundtrack. He makes a specialty of improvisation at the organ.

Heather Moen Boyd

A graduate of Sydney Conservatorium, Heather has had many years experience in the teaching profession, having taught piano at several Sydney schools including Tara, MLC Burwood, SCEGGS Darlinghurst, Mount St Joseph Milperra, and currently Georges River Grammar School. For several years she was organ tutor at Trinity Grammar School, and has taught keyboard at several Sydney primary schools. She runs a successful teaching studio at her home in Baulkham Hills, and is an examiner with the Australian and New Zealand Cultural Arts (ANZCA).

Heather has accompanied many choirs and musical societies, is an experienced recitalist on the pipe organ, and is organist and choir director at Scots Presbyterian Church, Mosman. She is a chorister with the Sunday Evensong choir of Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney, and is a committee member of the Royal School of Church Music (NSW). She has a particular interest in encouraging students to learn to play the organ, and will give a free introductory lesson to anyone wishing to give it a try.

Mark Quarmby

Mark Quarmby gained his degree in Music from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, studying organ with Norman Johnston and piano with Marjorie Hesse. He has also studied and played in masterclasses with Dame Gillian Weir, Michael Radulescu, Hans Fagius and others. In 1995, he was elected President of the Organ Music Society of Sydney and he has also served on the committee of the Royal School of Church Music (NSW Branch) for several years and in 2002 was elected a Director of the Organ Historical Trust of Australia.

Mark Quarmby is the Director of Music at St Stephen's Uniting Church, Macquarie Street, Sydney. Prior to his appointment in 2009, he was the Assistant Organist of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, for over 20 years. He has also taught organ, piano and musicianship in the Cathedral Choir School and currently teaches piano and theory/musicianship at St Patrick's College, Strathfield and privately. At the Cathedral he played for many important occasions which have included the funeral of Sir David Martin, the former Governor of NSW; two services before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh; the Sydney welcome to the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Sydney Memorial Service for Diana, Princess of Wales; and the funeral of international pop star, Michael Hutchance on national live television. In 2002 he played for the State Funeral of the longest serving Australian governor and war hero, Sir Roden Cutler.

He has recorded for CD, radio, television and film and regularly gives recitals in Sydney, having played at the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Town Hall, the University of Sydney, and St Andrew's Cathedral. He has also given recitals in all states of Australia and New Zealand (including the Town Halls of Melbourne, Adelaide, Wellington and Auckland) being a guest soloist for the Melbourne International Festival of Organ and Harpsichord in 1987, 1991 (when he performed a program of works by the Czech composer Petr Eben in the composer's presence), and again in 1994.

Overseas he has given recitals in New Zealand, England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy and North America. In 1986 he accompanied the 'Newington College Chapel Choir' on their tour of Europe, accompanying the choir in such places as St Margaret's, Westminster; St John's College, Cambridge; Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris; and Chartres Cathedral. He has also accompanied the St Andrew's Cathedral Choir on their tours of Australia, New Zealand and Britain.

During May 1995 he toured Germany, playing recitals featuring Australian organ music. This included a recital in one of Bach's churches on the organ Bach designed. He also lectured on the history of the organ in Australia and Australian organ composition in Germany (in German), the Netherlands and England.

During August 1995 he returned to Europe with the choir of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney; this time to play for over twenty services and concerts in famous English cathedrals. These included the cathedrals of St Paul's, London; Salisbury; Winchester; Oxford; Lichfield and St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

In May 1997 he toured France exploring four centuries of French organ building and playing 36 instruments. Later that year in October, he toured Germany and Switzerland, again giving organ recitals. In January, 1999 he played recitals in Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as giving a masterclass and lecturing on the organ in Australia.

He was the accompanist of the Sydney University Graduate Choir for nine years and for several years was the repetiteur of the Collegium Musicum at the University of NSW where he also has been an organ tutor and piano tutor. A Licentiate of the Trinity College of Music in London, he was the first person to be awarded the Fellowship Diploma from the Australian and New Zealand Cultural Arts Ltd for whom he now examines music students throughout Australia and New Zealand.

During 2000 he gave recitals as part of the Olympic Arts Festival and also gave a live broadcast of Australian organ and choral music with the Cathedral choir for BBC Radio 3 throughout Great Britain during the Olympic Games.

In July 2001 he performed recitals in Singapore, (also lecturing to the Church Music Students on hymn accompaniment), and Hamburg, Wangen and Wiesbaden in Germany. In August he recorded a CD of hymns, psalms and anthems with the St Andrew's Cathedral Choir. In June 2002 he performed in the United States and attended the American Guild of Organists' Convention in Philadelphia.

In October 2002 he performed as part of the Organ Historical Trust of Australia Conference held in Tasmania and was appointed webmaster for the OHTA website in addition to his work as webmaster for the Organ Music Society of Sydney where he has been documenting all the organs of NSW. In September 2003 he gave the opening recital of the Organ Historical Trust of Australia Conference in St Matthew's, Albury.

In March/April 2005 Mark accompanied the St Andrew's Cathedral Choir on a tour of Europe. There he accompanied the choir and played for services of Evensong in Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral (including the Church of England memorial service for Pope John Paul II). He also accompanied them in All Souls, Langham Place and Brussels Anglican Cathedral. In June he was a tutor and recitalist for the Pipe Organ Encounter program in Singapore.

On March 13, 2006 he again played for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Windsor and Prince Edward in a live national television broadcast of the Annual Commonwealth Day Service held at St Andrew's Cathedral and later met the Queen and Duke.

In June 2009 Mark played the opening recital of the American Guild of Organists Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, performing a program of 'Organ Music from Down Under'.

He is listed as a prominent Australian organist in the Currency Companion to Music and Dance in Australia (pub. 2003 p. 494).

Elaine Davis