Who we are

The Choir

Founded in 1980, The Llewellyn Choir is recognised as one of Canberra’s leading amateur choral groups. Under the baton of current Music Director Rowan Harvey-Martin with Répétiteur Anthony Smith, we have given critically acclaimed performances in recent years of Mozart’s Requiem, Bach’s St John Passion, Handel's Messiah, John Rutter's Requiem, Duruflé's Requiem, Ariel Ramirez’s Missa Criolla, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Bach's St Matthew Passion.

In 2009, we performed Fauré’s Requiem with the New Caledonian choir Les Alizés in St Joseph's Cathedral, Noumea. In return, Les Alizés visited Canberra in March 2011 to combine in a joint performance of Berlioz' Te Deum.

In 2010 we celebrated our 30th birthday with a concert featuring Brahms’ German Requiem.

The Llewellyn Choir established and sponsors the annual Margaret Smiles Accompanist Competition.

The Llewellyn Choir is an incorporated body in the ACT. The Committee is elected annually and takes the normal format of officers, plus committee members with a representative of each voice part also on the committee.

The Llewellyn Choir is proud to have Rowan Harvey Martin and Dr Anthony Smith as Music Director and Accompanist. Rowan is a Churchill Fellow, and has won 3 Canberra Critics Circle awards for her work in Canberra, while Anthony is a sought-after pianist as well as musicologist, composer, and arranger. Rowan and Anthony both graduated with Honors from the ANU School of Music.

Music Director - Rowan Harvey-Martin

Rowan Harvey-Martin has been Music Director of The Llewellyn Choir since 2006. Coming from a famous and formidable Australian musical family, Rowan went on to study at the Eastman School of Music, New York, and won many awards as a violinist, percussionist and jazz drummer before deciding to turn her attention to conducting. She was former Associate Concertmaster and Principal First Violin with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and has had extensive orchestral experience with the Eastman Virtuosi in New York and the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra.

Rowan studied choral conducting at Canberra School of Music and violin performance and orchestral conducting at Eastman School of Music. In 2009 she took part in Symphony Australia’s Conducting Development Program and in the same year was awarded the Stuart and Norma Leslie Churchill Fellowship for furthering her conducting in Graz, Austria with Johannes Fritsch and with the Rochester Philharmonic New York as Assistant to Maestro Christopher Seaman.

Rowan has conducted the State Orchestras of Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and Adelaide, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and many more, in particular exercising her passion for working with and educating young people and community organisations.

In Canberra, Rowan has been Chief Conductor of Canberra Youth Orchestra and Canberra Youth Singers, and Artistic Director of Canberra Youth Music. She took the Canberra Youth Orchestra on two tours to Sydney and Queensland to participate in the Australian Youth Orchestras Festival. She was also Head of Orchestras and Strings at Canberra Girls Grammar School, Artistic Director of the ACT Youth Orchestra and Artistic Director of ANOMALY. Rowan is currently conductor of the Australian National University Symphony Orchestra and was Musical Director of National Opera’s recent production of Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss.

With The Llewellyn Choir Rowan has conducted large works and small, classical and jazz, carving out a unique profile for TLC on the Canberra choral scene. She conducted TLC's highly acclaimed performances of Will Todd’s Mass in Blue at the 2025 Merimbula Jazz Festival, and at Easter, the Premiere of Howard Goodall's Invictus: A Passion. In addition to Durufle's Requiem, she has conducted TLC while performing major repertoire including Bach’s St Matthew Passion and St John Passion, Handel’s Messiah, Brahms Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, Faure's Requiem, Durufle's Requiem, Jenkin’s The Armed Man, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Tavener’s Ikon of Light, Rheinberger’s The Star of Bethlehem, Verdi’s Requiem, Ramirez' Missa Criolla, Will Todd’s Mass in Blue and Jazz Missa Brevis, Bernstein’s Mass and Chichester Psalms, as well as many other oratorios and large scale choral works.

Répétiteur - Anthony Smith

Anthony has performed in Australia, England, Germany, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, and the USA. He has worked as an accompanist for the ANU School of Music for many years, performing hundreds of assessable recitals with undergraduate and postgraduate students. He performs with many of Canberra’s choral and instrumental ensembles, most recently accompanying fellow ANU School of Music Alumna Lorina Gore and Andrew Goodwin in the highly acclaimed Art Song Canberra Concert Tea for Two.

In addition to The Llewellyn Choir, Anthony is also répétiteur to two other major Canberra choirs: SCUNA and the Canberra Choral Society.

In 2004, Anthony released a CD A Year in Paris with clarinettist Nicole Canham on the Move label. He made his concerto debut in July 2005, playing Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor with the National Capital Orchestra. In July 2007 Anthony gave a recital in conjunction with the National Gallery of Australia retrospective of the artist George W. Lambert, which included the Piano Sonata of Constant Lambert, the artist's son. Anthony's continuing interest in the life and works of Constant Lambert developed into the topic of his doctoral thesis, Constant Lambert: Dionysian Modernist.

Anthony’s compositions include The Will to Freedom, a music-theatre work he co-wrote with Maike Brill, which premièred in August 2010 at The Street Theatre under New York-based director Joanne Schulz. For The Llewellyn Choir he composed a setting of the Prologue to the Coventry Mystery Play, which the choir premièred in 2013 and revived in 2015.

Margaret Smiles Accompanist Competition

Margaret Smiles was for many years the accompanist for The Llewellyn Choir. After her untimely death the Choir decided to create an annual competition for accompanists in her memory.

The resultant Margaret Smiles Accompanist Competition is held annually at the ANU School of Music. It provides a forum for inspiring performances by some of the most talented and accomplished young musicians from the School.

The Llewellyn Choir sponsors the Llewellyn Prize of $500 each for the most outstanding instrumentalist and the most outstanding singer of the competition.

Read about the award and about Margaret's life in this article from The Canberra Times of 1 November 2000.