Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference 2024 has engaged an outstanding line-up of keynote and invited speakers. Read about our presenters below.
More presenters will be announced soon.
Professor Margaret Barrett
Professor Margaret Barrett is a leading figure in Australian and international music education. She is currently professor and Head of the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance at Monash University. Among her many achievements Professor Barrett was awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship in 2018 to undertake preliminary investigations of children’s singing and song-making in the archives of the Smithsonian Institute, and the Library of Congress (Washington DC) and was elected Beaufort Visiting Research Fellow at St John’s College University of Cambridge in 2019.
Professor Barrett’s research has addressed problems in the areas of aesthetic decision-making, the meaning and value of Arts engagement for young people, young children’s musical thinking, young children’s identity work in and through music, teaching and learning practices in the arts, and the pedagogy and practices of creativity. A key aspect of her work has been the development of innovative arts-based inquiry and expertise in music and music education.
Katherine Zeserson
Katherine Zeserson (UK) is an independent cultural activist. Her portfolio encompasses artistic practice as a musician and a writer; design and leadership of professional learning programmes for music educators, cultural leaders and artists; strategic advisory work for cultural organisations; and individual coaching. Current organisational clients include: European Concert Halls Organisation, Britten Pears Arts (UK), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (UK), Wicklow County Council (IRL). She is co-founder and Chair of Sing Up Ltd., a Trustee of Dash Arts (UK), and associate of Santa Marcelina Cultura (Brazil). She has a particular interest in singing for all; having worked extensively in the UK, Europe and Brazil with music educators on inclusive practice, creative pedagogy and improvisation, and is a founder member of vocal quartet Mouthful whose work spans performance, song-making and community projects. From 2001 to 2015 she was Founding Director of Learning and Participation at Sage Gateshead in northeast England.
Piers Lane AO
Piers Lane AO, who lives in London, is one of Australia’s most renowned and engaging performers. In demand worldwide as soloist and collaborative artist, highlights include a performance of Busoni’s mighty piano concerto at Carnegie Hall, premieres of Carl Vine’s second piano concerto and double piano concerto (with Kathryn Stott) Implacable Gifts, both written for him, and annual solo recitals at Wigmore Hall. His 2023 engagements included appearances in Dubai, New Zealand, Portugal, the UK, the USA and throughout Australia. As Artistic Director of the Sydney International Piano Competition since 2015, he chaired the jury of the 2023 edition and recently adjudicated the Horowitz Kyiv-Geneva Piano Competition, the Michael Hill Violin Competition in New Zealand and the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Vevey. He is responsible for recent Piano+ initiatives like the 2021 Online Piano Competition, the Piano Lovers’ amateur competition and Composing the Future.
Piers was Artistic Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music from 2007 to 2017 and directed the annual Myra Hess Day at the National Gallery in London from its inception in 2006 until 2014. He has recorded more than 70 CDs and has written and presented over 100 programs for BBC Radio 3. In 2022 he was presented with the Sir Bernard Heinze Award for service to music in Australia.
As APPC patron, Piers will present the Opening Night recital and a masterclass for advanced pianists.
Lisa Bastien
Lisa Bastien (USA) began piano lessons at the age of four, studying with her mother, Jane Smisor Bastien. She received her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Drake University and her Master’s degree in piano pedagogy from Arizona State University. After completing her master’s degree, Lisa moved to New Orleans and taught in the Preparatory Department of Loyola University.
Collectively the Bastien family has authored over five hundred publications that have taught millions of students worldwide how to play piano. Lisa Bastien and her husband Basil Hanss now reside in New York City, where Lisa maintains a full time teaching studio offering private and group lessons to students of diverse ages, abilities and interests. Lisa adores teaching piano, and finding new ways to encourage and inspire her students.
Murray McLachlan
Murray McLachlan (UK) combines a multifaceted career as pianist, recording artist, writer, lecturer and music educator. He teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music and at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester where he has been Head of Keyboard since 1997. In 2001 he founded the world famous Chetham’s International Summer School and Festival for Pianists which is now in its 22nd season. Billed as ‘The Friendliest Summer School if the World’ it is the largest event of its kind devoted exclusively to piano and annually attracts over three hundred participants and an international faculty of over sixty celebrated pianist-teachers
As well as performing and teaching Murray McLachlan is well known internationally for his numerous articles on Piano technique and repertoire. In particular he has written for International Piano magazine in a column which is now in its twenty-second year. His three books on technique ‘The Foundations of technique’, ‘Piano Technique in Practice’ and ‘The Psychology of Piano Technique’ were published by Faber, have been reprinted several times and received wide international acclaim. In 2013 the University of Dundee awarded Murray McLachlan and honorary doctorate for services to music and education.
Rae de Lisle
Rae de Lisle (Aotearoa New Zealand), formerly Head of Piano at the University of Auckland, is one of New Zealand’s most sought-after piano teachers. Her teaching has produced many outstanding pianists who have excelled at international competitions, including first prizes at the Sydney International Piano Competition and the Lev Vlassenko Australasian Piano Competition. Many of her former students are established as pianists throughout the world. She received an Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Auckland in 2011 and in the same year was awarded the Marie Vandewart Memorial Award for outstanding service and commitment to fostering the love of chamber music in New Zealand. In 2015 Rae was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to music.
Her lifetime research into piano technique has resulted in an internationally successful e-book, Fit 4 Piano. This contains specific exercises which help to develop and maintain healthy playing and are relevant at every level from the beginner pianist to the most advanced.
Konstantin Shamray
Konstantin Shamray burst onto the international music scene when he won both Judges’ and People’s Choice prizes at the Sydney International Piano Competition in 2008. Since then, Konstantin has performed extensively throughout the world. In Australia, highlights include engagements with all the major orchestras, and he has performed with Russian National Philharmonic, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, and Orchestre National de Lyon amongst many others. Chamber music plays a strong role in Konstantin’s musical career, and collaborations include tours and critical acclaim at numerous festivals.
Konstantin is Lecturer in Piano at Elder Conservatorium of Music. In APPC 2024, Konstantin will give a solo recital and mentor pianists in an open masterclass.
Melanie Spanswick
Melanie Spanswick is a pianist, author, teacher, and composer. She graduated from the Royal College of Music in London with a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance Studies. As a pianist, she has performed and broadcast worldwide, and, as an educator, Melanie has examined and adjudicated widely, and has given workshops and presentations throughout the UK and abroad.
Melanie has written, compiled, and edited over 25 piano books for the international market. She is a regular contributor to Pianist Magazine, her piano course, Play it again: PIANO (Schott) is a best-selling publication, and her three-book series, Women Composers – A Graded Anthology For Piano (Schott), recently won a Presto Music Award for best ‘New Series Of The Year’. As a composer, Melanie’s educational music has been featured in various exam and festival syllabuses and she is one of the few female composers to feature in the Edition Schott Series.
Susan Tomes
Susan Tomes has won numerous awards as a pianist, both on the concert platform and in the recording studio, including several Gramophone Awards, an RPS Award and the 2013 Cobbett Medal. She has been at the heart of the internationally admired ensembles Domus, the Gaudier Ensemble and the Florestan Trio. She is also the author of seven books about music and performance. In 2021 ‘The Piano – a History in 100 Pieces’ was a Book of the Year in several journals. Her latest book, ‘Women and the Piano – a History in Fifty Lives’, will be published by Yale University Press on 12 March 2024. It will be launched in London’s Wigmore Hall on the same day by Susan playing a solo programme of music by women featured in the book.
Aura Go
Aura Go is an Australian pianist whose practice encompasses performance, collaboration, curation, education and artistic research. She performs across the globe, as soloist in concertos from J.S. Bach to Sofia Gubaidulina, as recitalist and chamber musician in programs that interweave old and new music, and as creative collaborator in the development of new music and multi-artform projects.
Aura is Head of Piano at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance at Monash University. A passionate educator, she has been visiting artist at the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas (USA), the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus (Denmark) and the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz (Poland). She has taught piano at Yale College (USA) and the Sibelius Academy (Finland). Aura received her doctorate from the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, where her artistic research drew on the acting methodology of Michael Chekhov to explore the embodied imagination, creativity, and collaboration in music performance.
Ian Munro
Ian Munro is one of Australia’s most distinguished and awarded musicians with a career that has taken him to thirty countries in Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia. As a composer, Ian is the only Australian to have been awarded the Premier Grand Prix at the Queen Elisabeth Competition for Composers (2003), and was in 2011 the Featured Composer for Musica Viva Australia.
After completing his early training in Melbourne with Roy Shepherd, Ian furthered his studies in Vienna, London and Italy with Noretta Conci, Guido Agosti and Michele Campanella, launching his international career in the UK. He has performed with leading orchestras throughout the UK, Poland, Italy, Portugal, Russia, USA, China, New Zealand, Belgium, Switzerland and Uzbekistan, and with all the leading orchestras in Australia in over sixty piano concerti.
Ian has recorded for ABC Classics, Hyperion, Cala, Naxos, Marco Polo, Tall Poppies and the UK label Warehouse as soloist and chamber musician. A widely experienced chamber musician, Ian joined the acclaimed Australia Ensemble @UNSW in Sydney in 2000, for which he has also composed and arranged several works. Ian has headed the piano department at the Conservatorium of Music at the University of Tasmania, served on the faculty of the Australian National Academy of Music, and mentored students in masterclasses around the world.