“…No praise could be high enough for Piers Lane whose playing throughout is of a superb musical intelligence, sensitivity, and scintillating brilliance…” (Bryce Morrison, Gramophone)

London-based Australian pianist Piers Lane has a flourishing international career, which has taken him to more than forty countries. In the summer of 2012, as part of his extensive tour of Australia, Piers Lane joined Hugh Wolff and the Sydney Symphony for the world premiere of Carl Vine’s new piano concerto. He also performed Grieg’s piano concerto with the Melbourne Symphony under Sir Andrew Davis, played concerts with the Goldner String Quartet and gave solo recitals in Perth and Sydney. 

Highlights of the 2012/13 and previous seasons include the European premiere of Carl Vine’s piano concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vassily Sinaisky, a solo recital at Wigmore Hall, a performance of the monumental Piano Concerto by Busoni at Carnegie Hall, John Ireland’s concerto with the La Verdi Orchestra in Milan, as well as his appearance at the London Philharmonic’s Prokofiev Festival at the South Bank Centre, curated by Vladimir Jurowsky.

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 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 others. Leading conductors with whom he has worked include Andrey Boreyko, Sir Andrew Davis, Andrew Litton, Jerzy Maxymiuk, Marko Letonja, Vassily Sinaisky, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Antoni Wit.

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.

Piers Lane has been the Artistic Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music since 2007. He is also Artistic Director of the annual Myra Hess Day at the National Gallery in London. 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 throughout the UK at many festivals and theatres.

His 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. Recent releases include the Piano Quintets by Bloch, Bridge, Dvorak, Harty and Elgar, all with the Goldner String Quartet, d’Albert’s transcriptions of Bach organ works and duo discs with clarinettist Michael Collins and violinist Tasmin Little for Chandos.

Piers Lane is in great demand as a collaborative artist. He continues his longstanding partnership with violinist Tasmin Little, clarinettist Michael Collins and the Goldner String Quartet. He has performed extensively with singers Cheryl Barker, Peter Coleman-Wright, Yvonne Kenny, Markus Schäfer and Anne Sofie von Otter, as well as with Bengt Forsberg, Brett Dean, the Australian, Doric, 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. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from Griffith University in Australia. He was recently presented with the first medal from the Laza Kostic fund for promoting Serbian culture during difficult political times in the late 90s.

In 1994, he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, where he has been a Professor since 1989. He is Piano Ambassador for the Australian National Academy of Music, Patron of the European Piano Teachers’ Association UK, the Old Granary Studio in Norfolk, the Tait Memorial Trust, the Youth Music Foundation of Australia and the Music Teachers’ Association and the Accompanists’ Guild in Queensland. He is a Trustee of the Hattori Foundation in London and Vice-President of Putney Music Club. In the Queens Diamond Jubilee Birthday Honours, he was made an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished services to the arts as pianist, mentor and organiser.