Ellie Malonzo
Violinist and Composer
“I find myself realising every now and then that I am working with someone so young whose maturity, technical skill, and superb ear and musical sensibility belies her years as both performer and composer.”
Recordings
Ellie Malonzo - Violinist and Composer
14 year old Ellie Malonzo is already astounding audiences with her playing, described as ‘full in tone and brightly virtuosic’, and, having recently been accepted into the Yehudi Menuhin School, looks forward to a busy concert schedule in the 2024 season, playing as a soloist with several orchestras around Australia.
Ellie made her solo and concerto debut as a soloist with the Fremantle Chamber Orchestra in 2022, and was welcomed with a standing ovation. At 12 years of age, Ellie became the youngest soloist to have performed with the Fremantle Chamber Orchestra. She performed again with the Fremantle Chamber Orchestra and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in 2023, and has numerous orchestra engagements scheduled for 2024, including again as a soloist with the Fremantle Chamber Orchestra, Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and the Mosman Symphony Orchestra in Sydney, Australia, as well as several solo engagements.
Ellie has won 11 first prizes and placed in over 17 international music competitions, 14 of these in 2022. She has been invited to perform at winners recitals overseas, including in the USA, Vienna and Canada, and was featured in the London International Music Competition Online Concert Series. She was awarded a special mention in the esteemed Leonid Kogan International Competition for Young Violinists, and was interviewed on ABC Classic.
A multifaceted musician, Ellie is also a dedicated composer. At 6, she began composing for chamber ensembles, and wrote the first movement of a concerto for violin and string orchestra at the age of 7. She is now working on her fourth violin concerto, having also composed many shorter works, and was commissioned to compose a violin concerto for the Fremantle Chamber Orchestra at age 12. It was premiered in October 2022.
Her compositions and performances have been featured on ABC Classic and The Violin Channel, among many other prestigious platforms.
Fremantle Chamber Orchestra and Ellie Malonzo (13), conducted by Paul Wright.
Dvorak's Romance has always been a piece that has had a profound emotional effect on me. The lush romanticism and careful orchestration of the work makes it so afflicting and sensitive, and I see it as a shining pearl of violin repertoire. On my journey with this piece, I have tried to look past the beauty on the surface to craft an interpretation that moves the audience in the same way that the piece moves me. I believe that musicians, performers, are the messengers of composers. It is up to us to guide the audience on a journey that has been planned by a composer, and also up to us to make meaning for the audience out of something that we have learnt to understand as easily as spoken word. If my performances can make even one person feel the same way I feel when I'm performing, then I've done my job for that performance. As you listen to this, I hope my playing takes you on a journey into the world of Dvorak and his sublime Romance.