The fortepianist - portrait of Dr Geoffrey Lancaster

Professor Geoffrey R. Lancaster AO (b. 1954), fortepianist and orchestral director, grew up in Dubbo and attended the Canberra School of Music, Sydney Conservatorium where he completed his PhD, and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. In 1986, in Bruges, he became the first Australian to win a major international keyboard competition. A leader of the historically-informed performance practice movement, he has appeared as pianist and conductor with such orchestras as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Cologne Gürzenich, Ensemble 415, Concerto Copenhagen, Tafelmusik, and every major Australian orchestra. He was Director of the Tasmanian Symphony Chamber Players and Chief Conductor of La Cetra Baroque Orchestra Basel; has lectured at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, the Conservatory of Amsterdam and the Royal Academy of Music; and holds several emeritus and professorial appointments. Formerly Head of Keyboard at the Australian National University and Professor of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University, he is Patron of Australian Baroque and on the Council of the Australian Youth Orchestra. Among his many honours are ARIA and Gramophone awards for some of his more than 50 albums, Honorary Fellowship of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, an honorary Doctor of Music from Sydney University, and Officer of the Order of Australia. He was a finalist for Australian of the Year in 2006. In 2024 he was named a State Cultural Treasure by the Minister for Culture and the Arts in his home state of Western Australia.

Jude Rae painted Geoffrey with a late eighteenth-century Viennese style fortepiano that he commissioned from Paul McNulty of Prague.

Gift of Dr Andrew Lu OAM 2013 . Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Jude Rae