Leader

Jill Simpson was born in Sydney, Australia in 1983. Her musical journey began at the age of 5 when she started learning the piano from her Grandma. The piano lessons were a compensation for not being able to learn her favourite instrument - the violin. She first recalls wanting to learn the violin when her grandma took her to an exhibition of musical instruments at the Powerhouse Museum. She heard a lady play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ on the violin and thought it was the most wonderful thing she had ever heard! There were no violin teachers with vacancies in her area and the tissue box with rubber bands for strings just didn’t cut it!

Finally when she was twelve she had the opportunity to learn the violin under the direction of Edward Kearns, and later Jillian Wheeler (both in Australia, Jillian is originally from the UK). She now learns from Hazel Parkes of the Bow Belles String Quartet. Since starting lessons on the violin, she has played with a number of school, youth and community orchestras. In her last two years of high school she was the leader of her school string ensemble and played in two community orchestras: The Fishers Ghost Youth Orchestra (SW Sydney) and The Occasional Performing Sinfonia (TOPS, Sydney). She also played in the orchestra for the Schools Spectacular (a massive production at the Sydney Entertainment Centre performed by state school students from around NSW).

Although she enjoys classical music (particularly the music of Vaughan Williams, Respighi, Haydn, Mozart and Mendelssohn), she also has a passion for Irish fiddle music. She has played many a pub gig with an Irish band called Blarney in Australia. Since her first venture to the UK as a foreign exchange student in 2003, she has played in concerts with the Sheffield University Symphony Orchestra and the Hallam Sinfonia. She now lives in the UK and is currently working on her DipABRSM (Instumental teaching). She still uses her knowledge of the piano for composing music and is a regular pianist at her church on Sundays.