Helena Rathbone
Principal Violin
Helena Rathbone was appointed Principal Second Violin of the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 1994. Since then she has performed as soloist and Guest Leader with the ACO in Australia and overseas. In 2006 Helena was appointed Director and Leader of the ACO's second ensemble ACO2 which sources musicians from the Emerging Artists Program.
Helena studied with Dona Lee Croft and David Takeno in London and with Lorand Fenyves in Banff, Canada.
Before moving to Australia, she was Principal Second Violin and soloist with the European Community Chamber Orchestra and regularly played with ensembles such as the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
When not performing with the ACO, Helena has been leader of Ensemble 24, guest leader of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and is a frequent tutor and chamber orchestra director at National Music Camps and with the Australian Youth Orchestra. She has appeared in the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, the Christchurch Arts Festival, the Sangat Festival in Mumbai and the Florestan Festival in Peasmarsh, Sussex. As a regular participant of the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove (Cornwall), Helena played in the IMS tour of the UK in 2007. The group, led by Pekka Kuusisto, won the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for chamber music 2008.
