Maximilian Holzner
Max Holzner is a non-executive director and current Chair of the MTA. He has an extensive background in corporate governance, especially in the NFP space, and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD). His musical background is as a violinist and educator, having studied in Canberra with Josette Esquedin-Morgan and at the Canberra School of Music with Barbara Jane Gilby. He is an alumnus of the University of Cambridge and the Australian National University and the recipient of many awards, prizes and scholarships, including the Cambridge Australia Trust Orde Poynton Scholarship (2005-2007), UK Overseas Research Scholarships (2005 & 2006), Basil Bressler Prize (2003 & 2004) and an Australian Postgraduate Award (2004-2005). With the assistance of a Llewellyn Memorial Trust Scholarship (2003), he undertook further performance study at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
Max has collaborated with many of Australia’s leading performers, and together with cellist, David Pereira, recorded music of Australian composers for the Tall Poppies label. He has worked with many professional orchestras in Australia and performed with chamber groups and in festivals across Australia and the UK. He was assistant to the late Christopher Hogwood, Academy of Ancient Music, with whom he collaborated in the preparation of numerous critical editions for Bärenreiter, most notably Elgar’s Enigma Variations.
Max is deeply passionate about teaching and standards of music education and access. He is an active music teacher, with over sixteen years teaching experience, having held positions at Radford College, Canberra, and in the pre-tertiary program at the Australian National University. He has also tutored undergraduates in music at the ANU and at Churchill College, Cambridge.
For the last decade, since making Sydney his home, Max has based most of his private studio teaching in Western Sydney, where he has also sought engagement through broader community and business to lift the profile of music and raise awareness of teaching standards. He is a firm believer in the positive role technology has in creating greater opportunity and access, particularly through distance learning, and has partnered since 2014 with the leading music instrument supplier in the UK, NZ and Australia, Artist Guitars, to provide quality music teaching programs in rural and remote schools and communities.
Apart from serving as a director on the MTA Council, Max is currently chair and a founding member of the NFP, West Phil, which is aimed at bringing students and top professional performers together while raising the profile of music in the region. He is also a director of Music Aural Theory Trainer (MATT), a provider of close-curriculum online support for Australian classroom music teachers, and which is supported by NSW Treasury. He remains concerned with issues of corporate governance, particularly in the NFP space.