Bourby Webster

Bourby Webster is a violist, entrepreneur, educator, presenter, and producer. She is the Founder and CEO of Perth Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra that breaks the rules and has a mission of ‘Music for Everyone’.

Founded in 2011, the orchestra was created by Bourby with an ambition to reach a massive new audience in WA. She also passionately wished to find a way to retain talent in WA, creating jobs for, and showcasing, WA’s incredible musicians.

Since Perth Symphony’s launch in 2011, it has performed to over 350,000 people in locations from Karratha to Kwinana, playing Vivaldi to Nirvana. Perth Symphony has paid nearly $2m in performance fees to date, regularly gives work to 150 musicians a year, and created pathways into professional careers for WA’s aspiring younger musicians. Perth Symphony’s Education and Community Engagement programs have reached 20,000+ children, and seen remarkable collaborations with aboriginal poets, VJs, actors, dancers and partnerships with numerous organisations across WA. Perth Symphony’s Heritage Series concerts, featuring leading musicians, have received critical acclaim for their performance standards.

In 2017 Bourby created the Arts Leaders Collective to support leaders of new arts companies and is passionate about supporting women in the arts and in 2019, was named WA of the Year in the Arts and Culture category.

Bourby has a music degree from Oxford University, is a graduate of the Royal College of Music, has an MBA from UWA, and has been a winner of a 40 Under 40 award for Entrepreneurs and a finalist in the Telstra Business Woman of the Year Awards. She was a founding member of the UK-based electric string quartet ‘bond’ signed to Decca Records. She is a medal-winning, international-level coxswain and was the first female coxswain in 106 years of the WA Kings Cup Rowing Crew in 2002.