Rae de Lisle is currently Senior Lecturer in Piano at the University of Auckland where she is also enrolled as a PhD student. Her teaching has produced many outstanding young pianists, most notably John Chen, winner of the 2004 Sydney International Piano Competition and the 2003 Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition who was taught by Rae for eleven years.

As a pianist she studied in London at the Guildhall School of Music with Brigitte Wild, winning the Sheriff’s Piano Prize, the Victor Hoddy Memorial Prize and the Jubilee Scholarship. Her studies in London continued with Cyril Smith, Maria Curcio and Christopher Elton.  Performances in London included concerts at the Wigmore Hall and in the BBC recital series.

Rae returned to New Zealand in 1977 and for the next fifteen years was much in demand as a soloist, accompanist and chamber musician, playing throughout New Zealand, as well as in North America. She recorded regularly for radio and television in New Zealand, receiving the Mobil Award for the best classical recording in 1990.  She played concertos on many occasions with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and most of New Zealand’s regional orchestras.

In 2000 she set up the University of Auckland  Academy of Music to nurture and inspire students from the ages of five to 18. She was Director of the Academy until 2005, when she resigned in order to concentrate on teaching and research at the university.

Over thirty years of teaching Rae has developed a pianism retraining method which has helped many pianists to overcome overuse injuries.
During the past five years she has been researching focal dystonia, a devastating neurological disorder which usually forces musicians to end their performing careers. Her retraining method with pianists with this condition has been successful in a number of cases, significantly improving their ability to play. Presentations to date have included the Aspen Symposium (Performing Arts Medical Association of America), The Reflective Conservatoire(Guildhall School of Music, London), Incorporated Society for Tension in Performance, London,  the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester,  the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference, Adelaide, the International Symposium on Performance Science(Portugal) and at the Hacettepe University in Turkey where she was approached to work with a pianist who has been unable to play for 25 years. She is now exploring the possibility of working with a British pianist through video conferencing.

Rae de Lisle – New Zealand