Fiona Lucas

Fiona Lucas is an engaging and successful orchestral and band conductor. Well known in Sydney and Australia in the Wind Orchestra scene, Fiona has studied wind band conducting with some of the field’s leading teachers, including the internationally acclaimed Dr John P. Lynch, Dr Mallory Thompson, Prof H. Robert Reynolds, Prof Steven Davis, Prof Craig Kirchhoff, and the late Professors Larry Curtis, James Keene and Jerry Nowak, and she has studied orchestral conducting with Dr Luke Dollman and Ben Northey. She is currently finishing her MMus (Performance) in Wind Band Conducting by research at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Fiona has been guest conductor for the Sydney Conservatorium Wind Symphony, Sydney University Wind Orchestra, the Conservatorium High School Wind Orchestra and The Arts Unit, and was also fortunate to co-present a paper at the International Society for Music Education (ISME) World Conference in Glasgow. In 2019, she was appointed the Musical Director and Chief Conductor of the Sydney Wind Symphony, the first female conductor in the band’s history and one of only a few female conductors in Australia at the A-grade community band level. Fiona is also the Co-conductor and Vice President of the charitable symphony orchestra, The Occasional Performing Sinfonia (TOPS) which raises money for children’s charities such as Variety, the Children’s Oncology Ward and the Music Therapy Unit at the Westmead Children’s Hospital.

Over the past 30 years, Fiona has directed ensembles and taught instrumental music at numerous schools around Sydney as well as at regional camps and workshops. She has also adjudicated festivals and eisteddfodau, including the 2024 NSW State Band Championship Solos and the 2022 East Coast Band Championships. As well as teaching flute and recorder, Fiona regularly freelances professionally, including with the Korean World Orchestra for the 50th anniversary of the end of the Korean War in 2018. Currently, Fiona teaches flute at Barker College and at St Luke’s Grammar School in Dee Why, co-directing the Training Band and teaching flute with both Extra-curricular and Co-curricular Music Programs. Prior to these appointments, she was the Head of Music Performance Pre-K to 12 at the International Grammar School, Ultimo, and the Director of Concert Bands and the Recorder Program at Chatswood Public School for over 20 years.

As an instrumentalist, Fiona began her music studies after a successful audition into the Sydney Conservatorium Extension Studies Program (now known as The Rising Stars program), studying recorder and later baroque flute with Howard Oberg, and won the John Ellyard Memorial Scholarship twice. Fiona went on to do her BMus (Mus Ed) at the Sydney Conservatorium, and was the first student to complete this degree in baroque flute. She was also a recipient of an Australia Day award from the Australian Council for Women during this time, and completed her LMusA and LTCL diplomas on flute and recorder.