Piers Lane AO
"I have been in many music competitions... and I never liked them!
Now, as an established musician, I see their true value. It’s not just about competing and winning, it’s the entire process of preparing, rehearsing, presenting, performing... losing... there are so many aspects in play...
I call them experience.
Competitions like this offer that experience. In fact, to call this a competition is wrong! Each finalist is already a winner, each a master of their instrument and each a first prize holder before any note has been played. This competition is really a doorway for one of those eight young musicians to travel overseas and expand their musical knowledge... study, perform and use this experience.
The Australian Youth Classical Music Competition. Well worth supporting! That’s why I am Patron." Piers
Five times soloist at the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Five times soloist at the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall, Piers Lane’s concerto repertoire exceeds ninety works and has led to engagements with many of the world’s great orchestras including the BBC and ABC orchestras; the American, Bournemouth and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestras; the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, City of London Sinfonia, and the Royal Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Warsaw Philharmonic orchestras among many others. Leading conductors with whom he has worked include Andrey Boreyko, Sir Andrew Davis, Andrew Litton, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Marko Letonja, Vassily Sinaisky, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Antoni Wit..
He frequently performs at prestigious festivals: Aldeburgh, Bard, Bergen, Cheltenham, Como Autumn Music, Consonances, Huntington, La Roque d’Anthéron, Newport, Prague Spring, Ruhr Klavierfestival, Raritäten der Klaviermusik at Schloss vor Husum and the Chopin festivals in Warsaw, Duszniki-Zdroj, Mallorca and Paris, among them.
Piers Lane has recently been appointed as the new Artistic Director of the Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia. He has been the Artistic Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music since 2007 and also directed the annual Myra Hess Day at the National Gallery in London from its inception in 2006 until 2013. From this sprang his collaboration with actress Patricia Routledge on a theatre piece devised by Nigel Hess, exploring Dame Myra’s work throughout the Second World War. This show, entitled “Admission: One Shilling”, has been performed over 70 times, throughout the UK at many festivals and theatres and recently throughout Australia and Belgium.
