Performer, academic and music educator, Sally Walker is Lecturer in Classical Performance (Woodwind) at the Australian National University and has a long-standing association as Guest Principal Flautist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Photo: Howard Gwynne

As an orchestral musician, she has toured internationally with the Berlin Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, has performed as Guest Principal Flute with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Radio Philharmonie Hannover, the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra (on historical instruments), and has appeared in the London Proms, Salzburg, Lucerne, Tanglewood and Edinburgh Festivals as well as major Australian ones.

An advocate for new music, Sally has commissioned and premiered numerous works by composers such as Andrew Ford, Kats-Chernin, Henning Kraggerud, Coco Nelegatti and Sally Whitwell and new creative works developed through her composer/performer collaborations have been presented at the Swedish Flute Festival, Music and Spirituality Symposium and the Sydney Indigenous Music Conference.

She enjoys travelling to regional centres to teach, and hosting international and national flautists as guest teachers to her students. Former students have won prizes in the James Carson Memorial Competition, Australian Youth Classical Competition, Bad Dürkheim Music Competition (Germany), Jugend Musiziert Competition (Germany), hold orchestral, chamber and teaching positions in Australia and Europe as well as some founding their own inter-disciplinary ensembles.

Photo: Ettore Altomare

PERFORMER

With a repertoire ranging from early music to works composed especially for her, Sally has performed as soloist with the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra, Klassische Philhamronie Bonn, Accademia Filarmonica de Verona and premiered “Night and Now” concerto, composed for her by Elena Kats-Chernin, with the Darwin Symphony Orchestra. Sally was a prizewinner in the Friedrich Kuhlau International Flute Competition (Germany) and has been nominated for an APRA/AMCOS-Australian Music Centre Arts Excellence Award both for an Outstanding Contribution by an Individual and her “Twilight Musical Dialogues” series was nominated for an APRA Award for Arts Excellence in a Regional Area. Recent performances include critically acclaimed recitals with pianist Simon Tedeschi, productions with Omega Ensemble, Australian Romantic & Classical orchestra and performances in the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Sydney International Arts Festival, Adelaide Festival and Canberra International Music Festival. Sally’s performances are regularly broadcast by ABC Classic FM and she has been a guest speaker on SBS German Radio and Radio National.

EDUCATOR

Sally began her position of Lecturer in Classical Performance at the Australian National University in 2018 following being Lecturer of Flute at the University of Newcastle, where she was awarded the Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. She teaches a wide range of repertoire, integrating historically informed performance practice into students' study on modern flute and piccolo, as well as on historical flutes. She has been a guest teacher at the Royal Academy of Music (Sweden), Royal Irish Academy of Music (Ireland), Anton Bruckner Privat Universität Linz (Austria), Kobe University (Japan), Luleå University of Technology (Sweden), Instituto Universitario Patagónico de Artes (Argentina), Australian National Academy of Music and has been a featured masterclass and recital guest at the Swedish and Australian Flute Festivals and has tutored the Management Symphony Orchestra in conjunction with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (Germany).

ACADEMIC

Sally’s research embraces historical performance practice, music/physiology and composer/performer collaborations. She has published in public-facing media as well as academic platforms.

She completed her Doctor of Musical Arts thesis at the University of Sydney, on developing fluency in switching between modern and historical flutes and has presented related research at the International Symposium of Performance Science, 19th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music and the Conference of the Musicological Society of Australia.

Her creative practice includes recent critically acclaimed recitals with pianist Simon Tedeschi, productions with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Omega Ensemble, Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra and performances in major festivals. She has recorded three CDs with Australian pianist-resident-in-Berlin, Philip Mayers: Hemisphere, Kaleidoscope and French Miniatures. Many works on these recordings were new works developed through her collaborations with composers have been presented at the Swedish Flute Festival, Music and Spirituality Symposium and the MSA Symposium on Indigenous Music and Dance.

She is active in socially-driven projects with program outcomes presented in the International Karajan Symposium, UNSW Forces of Music Series and published in the International Journal of Community Music.

Photo: Paul Porteous

SOCIAL PROJECTS

Throughout her career, Sally has been involved in philanthropic endeavours, such as performing benefit concerts for Leipzig Musicians for Children with Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis Australia and Wesley Hospital Choices Cancer Support, and recording on Cyrus Meurant’s “Monday to Friday” CD (commissioned by Beaumont Care Australia) to support those experiencing dementia. More recently, she has stepped up to the organisational level and was a co-organiser of the “Music for our Country” Bushfire Benefit Concert, at City Recital Hall, Sydney.

Since the pandemic, her philanthropic projects have intensified. She began volunteer teaching for the Illumina Festival’s “Equal Music” project, has been the Australian organiser of the international 1:1 Concerts initiative, drawing together leading Australian musicians to raise funds out of work Australian musicians. Thanks to the support of the Klein Family Foundation, Sally was invited to curate the 1:1 Concerts series for the 2021 Adelaide Festival, which gained a five-star review (Limelight) and two days were devoted to performances for women experiencing homelessness (supported by the Mahmood-Martin Foundation). As of 2021, she is Ambassador for the Symphony for Life Foundation, which “believes every child should have access to the benefits of playing an instrument regardless of socioeconomic or cultural backgrounds”.

EDUCATION

A graduate of the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich (Germany), Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media and the University of University of Sydney, Sally Walker’s study has been supported by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange) scholarship, Ian Potter Foundation and the Queen’s Trust Prize.