Dr Karen Lonsdale

Musician / Educator / Researcher

Dr Lonsdale (Class of 1984) is a classically trained flautist and singer. Her favourite subjects at school were music and Italian. She was a member of the BSHS school orchestra, concert band and flute choir, which were conducted by the late Vincent Fryer. Highlights of her time at BSHS were performing with the orchestra at Cloudland, in the school musicals, as well as at the Opening Ceremony of the 1982 Pacific School Games where her brother, Peter Lonsdale, was competing as an athlete. She also performed a flute concerto at the Queensland Cultural Centre Auditorium. She is particularly grateful to all of her music teachers at State High, who gave her such a solid music education prior to her tertiary music studies.

After graduating from State High in 1984, Dr Lonsdale undertook a Bachelor of Music and Graduate Diploma of Music at the Queensland Conservatorium, and travelled to Germany to study with the late Professor Paul Meisen, one of Europe's finest flautists. She was awarded a Meisterklassendiplom in 1992. From 1993 to 1997, she lived in Sydney, performing with various orchestras including the Sydney Symphony, as well as the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra. She also taught flute at some of Sydney's leading private schools including Knox Grammar, International Grammar School, St. Andrew's Cathedral School and Queenwood School for Girls. Karen returned to Brisbane in 1998 to take up a one-year position as acting principal flute with the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra, followed by numerous performances as principal flute with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Queensland Pops Orchestra. She was also the flautist and a lead vocalist with X-Collective cabaret ensemble. Karen taught at the University of Southern Queensland and the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.

In 2011, Karen was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Griffith University. Her doctoral thesis was entitled "Contributing Factors, Prevention, and Management of Playing-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Flute Players Internationally". In 2012, she was appointed as a senior lecturer in music at the Sultan Idris Education University (Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris) in Malaysia. Her main teaching areas were flute, singing, choir, choral conducting, popular singing, history of western music, woodwind technique, and fundamentals of music theory. Her research on the playing-related health concerns of flautists and other instrumentalists has been published in the Medical Problems of Performing Artists journal and the Malaysian Music Journal.

In 2017, Dr Lonsdale was a guest artist at the 2017 Australian Flute Festival in Brisbane and the Ipoh Music Festival in Malaysia. She also performed with the Nakasari Ensemble (Malaysia) at the Asia-Pacific Symposium for Music Education Research in Melaka and the BrisAsia Festival.

Dr Lonsdale was a woodwind examiner for the Australian Music Examinations Board from 1995-2012. She has also adjudicated at the Australian National Band Championships, Sultan Idris National Wind Orchestra Competition, Finale Wind Orchestra, Unplugged Singing Competition: English X-Factor, the Malaysia International Music Arts Festival (MIMAF), Ipoh Music Festival (Malaysia), Bandfest (Newcastle), as well as various eisteddfods and music competitions in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria.

Since returning to Australia in 2018, she has performed with Camerata, Queensland's Chamber Orchestra, presented workshops for the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University and the Queensland Music Teachers' Association. She gave the Australian premiere of Georgi Mushel's, Flute Sonatina, at the University of Queensland with pianist, Dr Hila Yusupov, in July 2019. She is excited about recording with X-Collective cabaret ensemble in early 2021.

Dr Lonsdale loves speaking German and Malay and is now learning Hindi. In her spare time, she enjoys researching her family ancestry, lap swimming, watching movies, as well as managing her social media profiles.