Jonathon Welch is the Founding Artistic Director of Play it Forward, and is a multi award winning singer, conductor, teacher, songwriter and recording artist with a career spanning over forty five years.

Multi award winning singer, conductor, teacher, composer, director, keynote speaker and recording artist, Jonathon Welch is one of Australia’s most unique and sought after artists with a career spanning more than four decades.

Jonathon has performed around the world alongside many of the finest singers, directors and conductors in the world’s great concert halls and Opera houses including Carnegie Hall, New York, Royal Albert Hall, London and Sydney Opera House.

His unique, passionate social justice and inclusion work over the past 25 years revolutionising community singing and mental health in Australia through projects like Sydney Street Choir the acclaimed ARIA, Logie and Helpmann award winning, Choir of Hard Knocks, Social Inclusion Week, and now Play It Forward - inclusive arts programs for all Australians.

For his extraordinary contribution and commitment Jonathon has been awarded Victorian and Australian of the Year Local Hero 2008, ANZAC of the Year 2009, an Honorary Doctorate, an Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2009 and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Council of Educational Leaders.