Dene Olding is the son of the husband and wife piano duo
Max Olding and Pamela Page. He was initially educated at the
Anglican Church Grammar School in
Brisbane, but left at age 15—two years before he was due to graduate—to attend the
Juilliard School in
New York as a scholarship student of
Ivan Galamian and Margaret Pardee. He graduated from Juilliard in 1978. He attended master classes with
Nathan Milstein and had further lessons with
Herman Krebbers and
György Pauk. He joined the Australia Ensemble in 1982, and was also at that time leader of the
Australian Chamber Orchestra. In 1985, he was awarded a
Churchill Fellowship to further his musical studies. During that year, he won a Bronze medal at the
Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in
Belgium. He was concertmaster of the
Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 1987 to 1994, and again from 2002 to 2016. On his retirement he was appointed Concertmaster Emeritus of the orchestra. He is also a frequent guest concertmaster of the
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Dene Olding is regularly heard as soloist with all the major Australian orchestras and has worked with conductors such as
Edo de Waart,
Stanisław Skrowaczewski,
Stuart Challender, Sir
Charles Mackerras,
Jorge Mester,
Günther Herbig,
Werner Andreas Albert and
David Porcelijn. He gave the Australian premieres of
Witold Lutosławski's
Chain 2 with the composer conducting, and the violin concertos by
Elliott Carter and
Philip Glass. In addition, he has performed world premieres of violin concertos by
Ross Edwards (
Maninyas, a work dedicated to Dene Olding) and , and the Double Concerto for violin and viola by
Richard Mills, written for himself and his wife,
Irina Morozova. He has made many recordings, including one of sonatas by
Brahms,
Beethoven and
Mozart, with his father Max Olding. His recording of Ross Edwards'
Maninyas won the 1994
ARIA Award for Best Classical Recording, and the Cannes award. He made the first CD recording of concertos by
Frank Martin,
Darius Milhaud and
Samuel Barber. He has recorded the violin concerti of
Paul Hindemith with the
Queensland Symphony Orchestra under Werner Andreas Albert. He was the Artistic Advisor and Chair of the Jury of the 2018
ABC Young Performers Award, held at the
Sydney Opera House with the
Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He plays a
Joseph Guarnerius violin made in 1720. In the Edwards, Martin, Milhaud and Barber recordings, he used the
A. E. Smith violin he inherited from a previous Sydney Symphony concertmaster,
Ernest Llewellyn. He has conducted the Sydney Symphony and
Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. ==Personal life==