Piers Lane

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’s wide-ranging concerto repertoire exceeds 100 works and has led to engagements with many of the world’s great orchestras, working recently with conductors including Sir Andrew Davis, Vassily Sinaisky, Gerard Schwarz 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. Recent highlights include a standing ovation at Carnegie Hall for a performance of Busoni’s massive piano concerto; premieres of Carl Vine’s second piano concerto and (with Kathryn Stott) double piano concerto Implacable gifts, both written for Piers; concerto performances at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall and with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall; and annual solo recitals for the London Pianoforte Series at Wigmore Hall. 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 international piano competitions and in 2021 judged the Yehudi 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.