Fiona Steele - Head of Firebird School of Music
Acoustic Guitar Specialist
Lesson Types Offered:
Songwriting
Guitar for Singers
Guitar (Contemporary & Classical)
After a decade of performing and teaching experience under her belt, the idea for Firebird began brewing for Fiona a number of years ago. After a successful decade of teaching guitar and songwriting, Fiona decided to open Firebird School of Music and its band program, born out of a passion for community music-making and the joy of teaching people to make music together.
A multi award-winning professional singer/songwriter and guitarist based in Melbourne, Fiona performs regularly across Australia, primarily in her folk rock solo project FJ Steele, Fj & The Switch, and historically in folk duo GraceJean. Having worked as a singer, guitarist and fretted strings performer in many musical projects across her career, her experience spans having performed in tiny folk venues to musical theatre orchestra pits, to large festival arenas.
As an accomplished solo guitarist with over two decades of guitar study under her belt, Fiona’s guitar performance and writing has been described as ‘uplifting and lush, with a strong injection of Celtic lilt’, varying from melodic fingerstyle arrangements to ‘freight train speed, rhythmic grooves’. Inspired by the likes of The Paper Kites and Wallis Bird among many others, Fiona’s solo project FJ Steele spans from moody up to raucous folk rock, all grounded in a thumping, relentless groove.
Having experience playing across many other notable musical projects, including Ruth Hazleton & Daisywheel, The Maes, Nat Vazer, Half The Andes and the Joni Mitchell & Kate Bush Tribute Show, Fiona specialises in folk, rock and pop songwriting and acoustic steel string guitar. She has also worked with Ali Barter, Atlanta Coogan (Black Sorrows, Bjorn Again) and Luke Plumb. She’s also been produced by internationally acclaimed sound engineer Anna Laverty, and has learned various styles of guitar performance with Nick Charles, Jen Hawley, Werner Ruecker and Geoff Morris. Fiona’s electric guitar style is heavily inspired by the likes of The Paper Kites and Explosions In The Sky.
As a prolific songwriter, her songwriting style is nestled comfortably between the contemporary folk and indie rock genres, based around wistful melodies, evocative lyrics and ear-catching grooves. In 2019, indie folk duo project GraceJean was the recipient of the prestigious ALMF Scholarship for 2019 and placed as semi-finalists in the International Songwriting Competition. In 2018, the duo received Darebin Songwriting Competition Encouragement Award.
In addition to her work as a singer/songwriter and session guitarist, Fiona has also recently delved in to recording and producing music.
Fiona has completed both a Bachelor of Music (Performance - Classical Guitar) from Monash University and a Graduate Diploma of International Music Business from Box Hill Institute.
