Antony graduated from the Canberra School of Music with 1st Class Honours as ‘Most Outstanding Graduate’ for the Class of 1995. Antony achieved various accolades while studying including several first prizes in chamber music competitions and winning 2nd prize twice at the Darwin International Guitar Competition in 1993 and 1995. After this in 1996 Antony was awarded a ‘Big Brother’ scholarship to study in the UK which he used to receive tuition from Royal Northern College of Music’s Head of Guitar Gordon Crosskey and Manhattan School of Music Chairman of Guitar David Starobin.
Returning to Australia at age 22 Antony’s debut CD ‘Sunburst’ was recorded and nominated for an ARIA and was released internationally through Tower Records. Anthony moved to Melbourne in 1998 to take up his appointment as Head of Guitar at the Victorian College of the Arts. He has since performed in various ensembles on the electric and classical guitars premiering new works and appearing on national radio broadcasts. Antony has toured Australia, Germany and Slovakia and in 2002 Anthony became a founding member of the well known guitar group ‘Saffire’ which has toured Australia extensively and also won an ARIA in 2003.
In 2007 Antony received a highly competitive Australian Postgraduate Award to undertake the Masters in Performance (by research) course at the Victorian College of the Arts and he achieved the highest postgraduate mark at VCA Music for his 1st year recital. In the same year Antony premiered Mark Pollard’s ‘Concerto for Electric Guitar’ with the Darwin Symphony Orchestra and the Victorian College of the Arts Symphony Orchestra. This transcription from baritone saxophone is an experimental work in exploring the electric guitar’s potential to overcome limitations inherent on the classical instrument. Anthony’s work in this area is ground breaking as he has skilled himself in the very unique and difficult task of creating phrase shape, colour and sustain of melodic singing line in the same way a singer or violinist might. Unlike many who attempt this Antony achieves this through limited capabilities of very simple effect processing that allows him to create full,resonant and sensitive sound and touch which is often lacking in electric playing.
The Melbourne Guitar Quartet (formerly a quartet of his own students) invited Antony to become a member in 2007 and since then they have played in the Darwin International Guitar Festival as well as locally at the National Gallery of Victoria and Melbourne’s Acoustic Festival. They have also toured Melbourne metropolitan area to sell-out crowds and a regional tour of Victoria and southern New South Wales. They have also appeared live on 3MBSFM radio as well as on SBS TV. Recently the quartet won the “Cone of Silence Award’ for most popular act in Melbourne’s very own Quiet Music Festival.
Antony believes passionately in creating a strong future for the classical guitar in Australia and the guitar course at the VCA reflects this. Through his passion and love of teaching, qualities of initiative, industriousness and long standing motivation are cultivated and instilled in his students. Antony has nurtured a Guitar Department that is of a world class standard over the last 10 years and his students are among the elite standard of Australian classical guitar players and many are active professional players on the scene in Australia today.