lanskey
Bernard Lanskey (Director, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore; Pianist)
Born in Cairns in northern Australia, Bernard Lanskey originally studied music alongside philosophy and mathematics, at the University of Queensland, graduating in 1981 with 1st Class Honours. He subsequently moved for more specialised pianistic studies first to Paris and then to the Royal College of Music in London to complete a master’s degree with Peter Wallfisch.
Bernard Lanskey is Director of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore where he was awarded a full professorship in 2008. From 1994-2006, he was Assistant Director of Music at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where he was responsible for overseeing the ensemble and postgraduate programmes and where he was awarded a Fellowship (FGSM) in 2001. Since 2005, he has also been an Artist-in-Residence at La Loingtaine, near Fontainebleau, France.
As a pianist, he has performed throughout Australia, Great Britain, China and South-East Asia and in most European countries, working principally with string players and singers in chamber music, mixed recital and lecture-recital combinations. As well as playing with his regular musical partners, violinists Aki Saulière and Qian Zhou, the German soprano Felicitas Fuchs, cellist Qin Li Wei and British television journalist, John Suchet, recent concerts have included appearances with violinists Joshua Bell, Kam Ning and Zuo Jun, soprano Katherine Broderick, cellists Michael Kannen and Pierre Doumenge, clarinetist Marcel Luxen and pianists Daniel Tong, Jeff Sharkey and Stephen Emmerson.
He has organised a range of festivals and concert series including projects in association with the London Symphony Orchestra’s Discovery Series at St. Luke’s in London, as Artistic Director of the 20th and 21st Paxos International Music Festivals in Greece, of the Hadstock Music Festivals of 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011, and the University Summer Academy in Lausanne in 2011. He has also led a series of intensive themed festival week-ends at La Loingtaine France,: Mozart & Schubert around 30, Debussy’s Paris, and Schumann: Friends Real and Imaginary. CD releases have included Intimate Correspondences, featuring music by Brahms and Schumann inspired by Clara Schumann (with Aki Sauliere and Felicitas Fuchs); The Inner Line, four-hand piano music by Brahms, Schubert and Andrew Schultz (with the Australian pianist Stephen Emmerson); Suspended Preludes, featuring chamber music by Andrew Schultz, and Clarinet: North South East West with Marcel Luxen and Qin Li Wei.
His research interests build out from his longstanding activity as a collaborative pianist and chamber music coach focusing particularly on exploring the vital role played by metaphor and gesture in the pedagogical process. Over the past four years, he has also become active as a recording producer, working with a range of artists on recordings released to critical acclaim on Decca and Centaur amongst others. In November 2012, he has been invited to be President of the jury for the Geneva International Piano Competition.