London-based Australian pianist Piers Lane has a flourishing international career, which has taken him to more than forty countries. Highlights of the past few years have included a sold-out performance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at London’s Royal Festival Hall, concerto performances at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, a three-recital series entitled Metamorphoses and other performances for the London Pianoforte series at Wigmore Hall and five concerts for the opening of the Recital Centre in Melbourne.
Five times soloist at the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall, Piers Lane’s wide-ranging concerto repertoire exceeds eighty works and has led to engagements with many of the world’s great orchestras including the BBC and ABC orchestras; the Aarhus, American, Bournemouth and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestras; Kanazawa Ensemble, Orchestre National de France, City of London Sinfonia, and the Royal Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Warsaw Philharmonic orchestras among others. Leading conductors with whom he has worked include Andrey Boreyko, Sir Andrew Davis, Richard Hickox, Andrew Litton, Sir Charles Mackerras, Jerzy Maxymiuk, Maxim Shostakovich, Vassily Sinaisky, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Antoni Wit. His 2007 performance of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Pietari Inkinen received the Limelight Magazine Award for Best Orchestral Performance in Australia.
Festival appearances have included, among others, Aldeburgh, Bard, Bergen, Cheltenham, Como Autumn Music, Consonances, La Roque d’Anthéron, Newport, Prague Spring, Ruhr Klavierfestival, Schloss vor Husum and the Chopin festivals in Warsaw, Duszniki-Zdroj, Mallorca and Paris.
In 2007, Piers Lane was appointed Artistic Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. In 2009, the Festival received the Limelight Magazine Award for Best Event/Festival in Australia. He is also Artistic Director of the annual Myra Hess Day at the National Gallery in London. In 2009, he collaborated with actress Patricia Routledge on a theatre piece devised by Nigel Hess, exploring Dame Myra’s work throughout World War 11. This performance will be repeated at various festivals during the next couple of years, including Cheltenham and Canterbury in 2010.
Other highlights of the 2009/10 season include performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the BBC Scottish Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony and a major concert tour in New Zealand to include ten performances with the Doric String Quartet.
Piers Lane’s extensive discography includes, on the Hyperion label, much admired recordings of rare Romantic piano concertos, the complete Preludes and Etudes by Scriabin, transcriptions of Bach and Strauss, along with complete collections of concert etudes by Saint-Saens, Moscheles and Henselt, and transcriptions by Grainger. His recordings of Eugen d’Albert’s solo piano music and Delius’s violin sonatas with Tasmin Little were both nominated for Gramophone Awards. Recent releases include the Piano Quintets by Bloch with the Goldner String Quartet, shortlisted for a BBC Music Magazine Award. To be released in March 2010 are discs of d’Albert’s Bach transcriptions and the two Piano Quintets by Dvorak with the Goldner String Quartet. He has also recorded for the ABC Classics, BMG, Classics for Pleasure, Decca, EMI Eminence, Lyrita and Unicorn-Khanchana labels.
Piers Lane is in great demand as a collaborative artist. He continues his longstanding partnership with violinist Tasmin Little and has embarked on a new collaboration with clarinettist Michael Collins. Tours in recent years have included performances with singers Cheryl Barker, Peter Coleman-Wright, Yvonne Kenny, Markus Schafer and Anne Sofie von Otter with Bengt Forsberg, violist/composer Brett Dean, the Australian, Doric, Goldner, Medici, New Zealand, Prazak and RTE Vanbrugh String Quartets, and pianists Marc-André Hamelin, Hamish Milne, Kathryn Stott and Kathron Sturrock.
Piers Lane has written and presented over 100 programmes for BBC Radio 3, including the popular 54-part series, The Piano. In 2007 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Griffith University in Australia.
for further information visit his website: http://www.pierslane.com
Piers Lane is represented by Hazard Chase Artist Management.
http://www.hazardchase.co.uk/artists/piers_lane
| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 17-Feb-2013 Wigmore Hall | Markus Schäfer sings Lieder at Wigmore Hall |
 The intimacy of Schubert’s Lieder almost guarantees that no words can be missed. In comparison to say, a 100-strong choir competing with a full orchestra, the poetic element of Lieder is unmissable, and thus it occupies a larger part of the concertgoer’s attention. Schubert of course recognised this, and selected his wordsmiths carefully. Had he had the ability to to hand-pick tenors to sing those words in generations to come, he may well have chosen Markus Schäfer.Read full review... | |
| 17-Oct-2012 Southbank Centre: Royal Festival Hall | Beethoven, Vine and Shostakovich from Sinaisky and the LPO |
 At first sight, last night’s London Philharmonic Orchestra concert at the Royal Festival Hall was a typical piece of programming: a well known, relatively undemanding opener, a big symphony to close, and a première of a newly written work sandwiched carefully in between. But this programme had more coherence than met the eye, and Carl Vine’s Second Piano Concerto proved a thoroughly entertaining sandwich filler.
Read full review... | |
| 22-Aug-2012 Sydney Opera House: Concert Hall | A Romantic Symphony at Sydney Opera House |
| The latest Sydney Symphony Orchestra concert had everything from French impressionism to a world premiere, to a performance of a much-loved Romantic Symphony.
Read full review... | |
