Karina Schmitz & Simon Martyn-Ellis
Program
About the artists
Karina Schmitz, viola
American violinist and violist, Karina Schmitz, came to Australia in 2019 and relocated to Nipaluna/Hobart in 2025. She is thrilled to find herself immersed in the rich and vibrant musical scene in her new home. She also appears as principal violist with the Australian Haydn Ensemble and in nineteenth-century period trio Notturno. She has performed with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra, Van Diemen’s Band, Salut! Baroque, and Ensemble Galante.
In the United States, Karina was principal violist of Handel & Haydn Society in Boston, principal violist of Apollo’s Fire in Cleveland, principal violist of the Carmel Bach Festival in California, and founding violinist/violist with New York based 17th century ensemble ACRONYM. Karina holds viola performance degrees from New England Conservatory of Music (Boston) and the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Karina plays on a copy of a Brothers Mantegazza viola she commissioned from Canadian maker, Francis Beaulieu, in 2011.
Simon Martyn-Ellis, Romantic guitar
Simon Martyn-Ellis began playing the lute after finding the classical guitar repertoire too restrictive for ensemble performance: continuo collaborations remain a mainstay of his activities.
Simon returned to Australia in August 2019 after 17 years abroad, having lived and worked in first Germany for a decade, and then the United States. Intensely grateful for his experiences, he looks immensely forward to working with past, present and future colleagues from home and around the globe.
Now based in Nipaluna/Hobart, you can hear him working within Pinchgut Opera, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Latitude 37, the Australian Haydn Ensemble, Van Diemen’s Band, ARCO, Salut! Baroque, Ensemble Galante, the Sydney and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, as a founding member of Notturno and Duo Corbetta, along with other small but special collaborations.
His particular interests are in vocal works, either in opera or intimate recitals, baroque and romantic guitar repertoire, and finding the groove in Early Music. But really, he just has a great time making music with people, exploring the diversity and richness of the sounds of plucked strings from the 16th to the 19th Centuries.