The St James' Music Foundation Professional Development Recipients
The first scholarship was awarded to Brooke Shelley in 2000. Along with a scholarship from the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, this allowed her to undertake a Master of Music in Advanced Musical Studies degree, majoring in Historical Musicology at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Your Pathway
Aidan O’Donnell
Bass Aidan O’Donnell is a passionate and animated performer whose love for storytelling is conveyed through his singing. Under the tutelage of Andrew Dalton and David Greco, Aidan has a BMus degree in classical vocal performance and a MMus degree in opera performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (SCM). Aidan was a part of the Choir of St. James’ King Street as a choral scholar from 2018 to 2020, and a chorister from 2021 to 2024. Aidan has worked also with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, The Song Company, and Bach Akademie Australia. Opera roles include the title role in Le nozze di Figaro by Mozart (Prague Summer Nights), Leporello in Don Giovanni by Mozart (Prague Summer Nights), Sarastro and Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte by Mozart (Berlin Opera Academy) and Seneca in L’incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi and Kats-Chernin (SCM). In 2024 Aidan was a young artist with Pacific Opera Studio, he was a semi-finalist for the German-Australian Opera Grant for 2025, and he was also a finalist for the Opera Australia Young Artist Program for 2025. Aidan is excited to commence the Artist Diploma in Vocal Studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London from September 2025.
James Brew
One of Sydney’s foremost young organists and musicians, James Brew has been the organ scholar of St James’, King St since August 2023. He has played and performed on some of the world’s grandest and most famous instruments, from the Sydney Town Hall to Haarlem’s st-Bavokerk, alongside international tours and performances as a singer and composer.
Beginning his musical education with the Sydney Children’s Choir at the age of six, James started taking piano lessons in the same year, and tuba lessons not long thereafter. His choral career has taken him on tour, performing solos with the Vienna Boys’ Choir and Gondwana Chorale. An avid multi-instrumentalist, James’ performances range from high modernist vocal works to some of the most virtuosic renaissance recorder repertoire.
James has also emerged as one of Australia’s premier young composers, most recently being named in the top 5 composers from Oceania in the European Recording Orchestra’s Call for Scores, 2025. He has won multiple national and international competitions and had several pieces already performed, notably conducting his piece ‘Starlight’ in concert at the Sydney Opera House in 2018 when he was only eleven.
In 2024, James received his LMusA with distinction for Organ Performance, as well as being nominated for the encore showcase for his HSC Music Extension compositions and making the all-round achievers list by receiving a top-band result in more than 10 units.
Outside of his musical endeavours, he has represented his school in fencing, rowing, linguistics, and athletics. James also enjoys a wider artistic practice, including poetry and visual arts.
Following his first year at Jesus College, Cambridge, James writes the following:
My first year at Cambridge has been excellent! I have not only achieved musically and academically, but I feel I have truly grown as an organist, composer, and musician; I have also found the course challenging and so enriching. On top of this, I’ve thrown myself into extracurricular activities such as rowing and have made some incredible friends.
In terms of the chapel commitments, I’ve accompanied up to four services a week every week of the academic year, including conducting and directing up to two services a week. This has been an amazing opportunity to work with the fabulous choir, improve as an organist and also get more of a feel for the roles and responsibilities of choosing music and conducting. I have also had the opportunity to give several solo organ recitals around Cambridge in which I have prioritised the work of living and contemporary composers, often presenting them alongside staples of the organ repertoire such as Bach or Franck. A particular highlight was being part of a recital series for International Women’s Day, in which I programmed music entirely by living women. After a very successful organ scholars tour to Amsterdam in April, in which Pieter Van Dijk taught me amongst other world-class pedagogues, I have also been invited to give recitals in Oxford.
When it comes to choir direction, I very successfully organised and directed a concert in March of Walton’s A Litany, William Varga’s Lamentations and Eric Whitacre’s When David Heard. The concert was a huge success, and at the end of it I was awarded the Crighton Award for outstanding musical contribution to college life by an undergraduate.
On top of this, I have now had four pieces performed by the college choir: a setting of Psalm 23, of the Oculi Omnium, of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets and a Missa Brevis setting. (If you’d like to watch, the YouTube live stream of my Oculi Omnium being sung can be found here! https://youtu.be/w8e888cJQfk?t=768)
Compositionally, I also workshopped with the university’s ensemble in residence this year, Quatuor Bozzini, a Canadian New Music string quartet, writing them a piece that I submitted as my major compositional work for the course. I was awarded the highest marks in the cohort with a score of 83 for this piece. This, alongside performance, analysis, tonal skills, history, music in contemporary societies, and general musicianship, contributed to me receiving first-class honours and ranking 2nd out of 58 students.
Additionally, I rowed consistently in the 2nd VIII throughout Michaelmas and Lent terms, then subbed in where needed during exam term, rowing 3 days of bumps and successfully bumping all three days! I’ve also been involved in the college art club and played tuba in the University Brass Band, as well as the Trinity, King’s and Jesus College orchestras. I’ve accompanied tens of recitals on the piano, and several people’s performance exams. The college environment has been amazing, and I’ve made close friendships with people studying everything from astrophysics and veterinary science to art history and architecture. I hope you enjoy the photos I’ve attached of some places I’ve been with the choir and organs I’ve played, among other things!
Next year I intend to continue all of my activities, alongside the added responsibility of being Senior Organ Scholar. I currently have plans in the works to put on a performance of Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 voices, alongside works by Lucy Blomfield, and intend to seize just as many opportunities as I have this year.
William Varga
William Varga is a Sydney-born composer and countertenor who has sung with the Choir of St James’ since 2022, becoming a full member in mid-2025. In September 2026, he moved to London to undertake a Master of Music in Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, continuing to develop a career encompassing both composition and performance.
William graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2025 with a Bachelor of Music (Composition) with First Class Honours. During his studies, he organised seventeen performances of his own music and studied composition with Dr Paul Stanhope, Carl Vine AO, and Peggy Polias. His compositional interests are strongly influenced by the vocal and polyphonic traditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and by his practical experience performing choral and liturgical repertoire.
His music has been performed in Australia by ensembles including the choirs of St James’ King Street, St Mary’s Cathedral, St Andrew’s Cathedral, and St Paul’s College. His work has also received performances in the United Kingdom, including by the Lay Clerks of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and in the Chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge.
Alongside his work as a composer, William maintains an active career as a countertenor. He has held regular positions with the Choir of St James’ King Street, St Mary’s Cathedral Choir, and St Andrew’s Cathedral Choir, and has performed with ensembles including the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Pinchgut Opera, The Song Company, and Van Diemen’s Band. Recent highlights include Monteverdi’s Dixit Dominus with Van Diemen’s Band in Hobart, Bach cantata arias at St Andrew’s Cathedral, and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at St James. He studies singing privately with Dr David Greco.
William’s years singing at St James’ have been an important part of his musical development, bringing his work as a composer into close contact with the Anglican choral tradition and with a broad repertoire spanning Renaissance polyphony to contemporary music. He looks forward to continuing this combination of composition and performance in London, taking advantage of the city’s rich choral, liturgical, and concert life while undertaking postgraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music.