Some of our staff

Aaron Dohse is a teacher, conductor, performer, and administrator from Adelaide, South Australia. He graduated from the Elder Conservatorium of Music in 2005, where he studied clarinet with David Shephard. Aaron is a multi-instrumentalist who regularly performs on the clarinet, saxophone and piano. He is a former member of the South Australian Music Camp Association. Aaron has been a regular staff member at Border Music Camp since 2005: he first conducted the Hardie Symphonic Wind Ensemble in 2018, having previously been a saxophone and clarinet tutor. Aaron is currently the Coordinator of Co-curricular Music, Arts & Activities at Saint Ignatius’ College, Adelaide.

Therese O’Brien is an experienced cellist and cello teacher from Adelaide whose love for her instrument of choice knows no bounds. She is a trained Suzuki teacher and has a thriving private studio where she teaches students ranging from those for whom you won’t believe they make cellos small enough, right through to adults, and all the ages and abilities in between. Therese genuinely loves teaching and her joy and dedication to quality education attracts students from all over Australia. Therese tutors at various AUSTA events, is an invited guest teacher at several annual interstate Suzuki Conferences and regularly tutors for the Adelaide Youth Orchestra. In Adelaide Therese also works as a classroom music teacher, coordinates and teaches school string programs, conducts school ensembles and in her spare time performs around Adelaide’s vibrant music scene. Growing up in Alice Springs, Therese’s main connection to the musical world was through her attendance at interstate music camps. The thrill she experienced in her own life at these camps – of living and breathing music all day – has never left her and was in fact integral in her decision to pursue a career in teaching music. Some of her happiest childhood memories were formed on these music camps, alongside some of her longest friendships, and she considers it a great privilege to provide students with the same opportunities that inspired her own love of music.

Emma hails from Sydney and first attended Border Music Camp as a violin tutor in 2000. In 2009, Barbara Cran handed over the reins to Emma as conductor of Cran - most appropriately, as Emma had studied the King of Instruments with Barbara before completing a Bachelor of Music (Hons) in viola performance at the University of Newcastle. She then returned to Sydney and worked as a peripatetic music teacher and performer, setting up several primary school string programs, string ensembles and Celtic ensembles. In 2006-08, Emma completed a Master of Music with Specialist Strings Study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (UK), while performing across the concert halls of northern England in a dazzling array of ensembles. Emma now lives and works in central Victoria, where she has established two new school string programs in local primary schools, plays with her quartet Conspirito and together with colleague Heather Cummins has begun the student string orchestra Resonance.

Alex graduated from the Australian Institute of Music in 2001, where he studied violin with Alice Waten. Since then he has freelanced with ensembles including the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra and entertainers such as Barry White. As a participant in the Symphony Australia Conductor Development Program, Alex conducted the Melbourne, Tasmanian and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, the Queensland Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria. In 2010-11 Alex studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (UK) for a Master of Music in Conducting. Alex is a passionate educator and has directed orchestras, string enembles and choirs at Sydney Girls, Fort Street and Killara High Schools. He has also worked as conductor to the NSW Education Department Arts Unit Symphony Orchestra, and as the assistant director to the Schools Spectacular. Alex is the longest-serving Camper. He attended his first Border Music Camp at the age of eight, and has tutored violin and conducted Newman, Pringle and Cran. Along with his mum and dad (who have been on the Committee all that time), he was made a Life Member in 2010.

Andrew Aronowicz is a Melbourne-based composer whose music is imbued with fantasy and colour, woven into beautiful and abstract sound pictures. He has been composer-in-residence at Border Music Camp for four years. He has worked with a number of major Australian ensembles and performers including the Melbourne, Tasmanian and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, as well as Syzygy Ensemble and Arts Centre Melbourne, among others. He was recently announced as one of the composers in the SSO's prestigious Fifty Fanfares program. His music has been performed in concerts and festivals around the world, including in the Metropolis, SoundSCAPE and Darmstadt festivals. In 2016, Andrew’s orchestral work Strange Alchemy was chosen as the Australian Under-30 entry in the 2016 International Rostrum of Composers. In 2019, his song cycle The Abbotsford Mysteries, a setting of poetry by Australian poet Patricia Sykes, was premiered by contralto Liane Keegan and Plexus Ensemble to great acclaim. Andrew is also a passionate teacher, writer and speaker about classical music, and produces radio full-time at ABC Classic.

Alastair comes from Wangaratta, and went to Border Music Camp as a student from 1989 to 1991. He was then a violin tutor, concert manager and deputy director, before becoming Director in 1997. Hep was educated at Wangaratta High School and subsequently attended the University of Sydney, where he gained a BMus (Hons) in composition, studying under Peter Sculthorpe and Ross Edwards. He worked at the Australian Youth Orchestra from 1997 until 2000, when he was appointed Orchestra Librarian for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In 2017 he was invited to take the newly created position of Head of Library Services at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He is the Vice President of the international association of ensemble librarians, MOLA (Major Orchestra Librarians‘ Association), the first one from outside the US or Europe.

Joel is a saxophone specialist who teaches woodwind and conducts ensembles at secondary schools in Melbourne. He has a BMus and a BTeach from the University of Melbourne, where he studied saxophone with Barry Cockcroft, Ian Godfrey and Michael Lichnovsky. He has performed extensively in Australia, Asia (Malaysia, Japan) and Europe (Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom) in both classical and jazz styles. His broad musical interests span from early music to contemporary electronic music. Joel first attended Border Music Camp as a student in 1995, and it was at this Camp that he met his future wife Bronwen. Their baby daughter, who is adorable, owns a T-shirt that says 'Dad met Mum at Border'. Since joining the staff in 2005, Joel’s roles have included tutoring saxophone, leading the Experimental Music ensemble, conducting Pringle, being deputy director, and, of course, inventing the word DWOTOG.