Chris Howlett and Adele Schonhardt lead this social enterprise, combining decades of experience in performance, artistic planning, broadcasting and arts management to support their colleagues and the arts industry.
Chris Howlett
Described by the Financial Review as ‘one of Australia’s top 10 artists to watch in 2021,’ Chris Howlett is a cellist, artistic director and producer. As a cellist, he graduated top of his class, has performed concertos around the world and has been a finalist and prize winner at a number of prestigious international chamber music competitions, including the Trio di Trieste International Competition, the Asia Pacific Chamber Music Competition and The Hamburg International Chamber Music Competition.
As a director, he is co-founder of the Australian Digital Concert Hall, co-director of the sell-out Sanguine Estate and Bendigo Chamber Music Festivals with Howard Penny, and curates 3MBS Fine Music Melbourne’s yearly Marathon.
He is founder and Executive Producer of Australian International Productions and the Australian International Opera Company, which typically presents over 150 concerts in China each year. Before COVID-19, it was Australia’s largest exporter of classical music to China. He is also Chairman of the NFP Australian Digital Arts and Events and former Chairman of 3MBS Fine Music of PATMA Educational Concerts.
Adele Schonhardt
Adele Schonhardt has spent two decades connecting people through music – a skill honed working in arts management, governance and corporate PR in Australia, Germany and the USA.
A graduate of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Adele’s career has taken her from Germany’s biggest opera house in Baden-Baden to the League of American Orchestras in New York and most recently to Musica Viva Australia, where she was Media & Public Affairs Manager before leaving to focus on ADCH.
She completed an Executive MBA at the Australian Graduate School of Management in 2018 and was honoured with the Anita Prabhu Women Leaders in Business Award in 2021 (AGSM at UNSW Business School).
Adele is a proud volunteer with 3MBS Fine Music Melbourne, where she hosted the Sunday night ‘Melbourne in Concert’ program for four years before joining the Board of Directors in 2016 and being appointed Chair of the Board in 2020-21. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and two daughters.