A significant amount of work goes on behind the scenes for every concert. Today, we learn a bit more about Yvette Goodchild, one of our key staff members who works to get concerts to the stage, and what makes her tick.

Yvette is the MPU’s Operations and Artistic Coordinator, and you may have seen her running the box office at our events. Before joining UNSW, Yvette was a professional viola player well-known to Sydney audiences. She was former Assistant Principal Viola of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as well as frequent guest artist with the Australia Ensemble UNSW. We asked her four questions!

Who is your favourite composer?

Anyone other than Bruckner!

What do you love about your job?

I love the range of people I get to meet and work with, including colleagues, subscribers, musicians, and artists. I love people. I also love the variation of work, the location and our local coffee cart.

What is something we would not know about you?

I like to find something beautiful in everything. Whether it is taking a moment to notice the small simple beauties in nature, a delicate phrase or an exquisite chord progression in music, and of course my love of old door locks, keys and escutcheons. I simply adore how artisans and craftsmen took time and care to create something that is insignifi cant and practical into a work of elegance and sophistication. I remember visiting Hampton Court in 2016 with my family, and I drove them utterly to distraction. I would keep stopping to admire the nail heads that had been used in the ancient floors, the unusual royal markings on the copper down pipes... and my favourite, a rather ingenious releasing brass door latch and pulley system that had been designed especially so the queen would not need to get out of bed in the morning to give entry to her servants. I don’t think I could tell you anything else about the Queen’s bedroom apart from this beautiful brass latch!

On a scale of one to ten, how much of a cat person are you, and are cats really better than dogs?

I love all animals, but I’m definitely a ten. Cat people unlike dog people do not have a need to say which of the two they prefer!