London-based Australian pianist Piers Lane has a worldwide reputation as an engaging, searching and highly versatile performer, at home equally in solo, chamber and concerto repertoire. Five times soloist at the BBC Proms, Piers Lane’s wide-ranging concerto repertoire exceeds one hundred works and has led to engagements with many of the world’s great orchestras, working recently with conductors like Sir Andrew Davis, Vassily Sinaisky, Gerard Schwartz and Brett Dean. Festival appearances have included Aldeburgh, Bard, Bath Mostly Mozart, Bergen, Cheltenham, Como Autumn Music, Prague Spring, Rockport, La Roque d’Anthéron, Ruhr Klavierfestival, Schloss vor Husum, Seattle and the Chopin festivals in Warsaw, Duszniki-Zdrój, Mallorca and Paris.
Highlights of 2022 include two Wigmore Hall solo recitals, a performance of the mighty Busoni Concerto at the Bard Festival New York, an Australian tour with the Maltese tenor Josef Calleja, appearances for series and festivals in Australia, the Czech Republic, India, Italy, Spain, the UK and the USA. In 2015 Piers Lane was appointed Artistic Director of the Sydney International Piano Competition and is responsible for initiatives like the 2021 Online Piano Competition, the Piano Lovers’ Competition for amateur Australian pianists and Composing the Future, a competition to help Australian composers during covid times.
He is a popular judge at piano competitions and in 2021 judged the Menuhin International Violin Competition.
His extensive collaborations with violinist Tasmin Little, actress Dame Patricia Routledge (in the Dame Myra Hess exploration Admission: One Shilling) and the Goldner String Quartet have been of major importance. He is a member of the newly formed chamber group Amici della Musica.
In recent seasons Piers Lane performed three concerti at Carnegie Hall, and world premieres of Carl Vine’s second Piano Concerto and Double Piano Concerto (with Kathryn Stott) Implacable Gifts, both written for him.
His extensive discography for Hyperion includes much admired recordings of rare romantic piano concertos, the complete Malcolm Williamson piano concertos, the complete Preludes and Etudes by Scriabin, transcriptions of Bach and Strauss, along with complete collections of Concert Etudes by Saint-Saëns, Moscheles and Henselt, and transcriptions by Grainger.
He has also recorded eleven volumes of piano quintets with the Goldner String Quartet for Hyperion, many cds with Tasmin Little for Chandos, further solo and chamber cds for EMI, Phillips, Dutton, Unicorn Kanchana and Mozart Concertos for ABC Classics. Awaiting release is a Hyperion followup to the popular ‘Piers Goes to Town’.
Piers Lane was Artistic Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music from 2006 to 2017, and from 2006 to 2013 directed the annual Myra Hess Day at the National Gallery in London. He has written and presented over 100 programmes for BBC Radio 3, including the 54-part series The Piano.
In the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Birthday Honours he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished services to the arts. In 1994 he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, where he was a professor from 1989 to 2007. Piers holds Honorary Doctorates from two Australian Universities: Griffith and James Cook.
