 Vernon
Hill began his musical life as a boy soprano. He was given a six-holed
fife by his brother when he was five years old. His first flute was a
wooden fife with four keys, and he was introduced to a real Boehm wooden
flute at the age of nine by the Australian flute virtuoso James Carson,
who taught him for the next nine years.
He has taught the flute throughout Australia and internationally at institutions including the Melbourne University Conservatorium of Music, the Victorian College of the Arts, The Canberra School of Music (Australian National University), The Royal Academy in London, the special music school in Ketchkemet, Hungary, various music schools in Japan, The Hong Kong Academy and at the Conservatorium of Music in both Beijing and Shanghai in China. Vernon Hill was Principal Flute in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for more than ten years. He represented Australia in the World Symphony Orchestra in the USA in 1971 and has been a guest principal with the London Symphony, the BBC and the Sydney and Canberra Symphony Orchestras. He has recorded for EMI, Festival, Peter Mann, Move and the ABC, in addition to playing on many film soundtracks. His EMI recording of the Colin Brumby Concerto received wide acclaim and completely sold out shortly after its release, the slow movement of the Mozart Flute and Harp Concerto (Mozart in Delphi album) was nominated for the 1987 Australian Recording Industry Awards and his 1989 performance of the Colin Brumby Flute Concerto in Canberra received the Critics Award for best performance of an Australian Composition. He is a highly respected master teacher of the flute, for 20 years was Head of the Wind Department, and is now a Visiting Fellow at the Canberra School of Music, Australian National University. |