Dr Liam Viney

Dr Liam Viney

Pianist Liam Viney is a soloist, collaborative musician and teacher. First prize-winner of the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, Liam has performed regularly in Australia, the U.S., Europe and Israel. After spending a decade in the United States pursuing a multi-faceted performing and teaching career, including five years at the California Institute of the Arts, Liam is now the Piano Performance Fellow at the University of Queensland, School of Music. He has appeared as soloist with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Hartford Symphony, the Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra, the Queensland Youth Orchestra, the New Century Players and the CalArts Chamber Orchestra in concertos ranging from those of Mozart and Beethoven, to Prokofiev and Ligeti.

Liam's 2008 solo recital of all Australian music (including five U.S. premieres) at Zipper Hall in Los Angeles was named “Best of 2008”; one of the top ten musical events that year in Los Angeles, by L.A. Times critic Rick Schultz. Liam has given solo recitals and chamber music performances in concert series and festivals such as the Bangalow Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Connecticut, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's "Green Umbrella" series, The Dartington International Summer School, the "New Paths" festival of New York, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, Melbourne's "Next Wave" festival, the Brisbane Festival, the "Keynote", "Celebrations", and "Kawai" series of Australia, and the "Tyalgum Festival". Liam's involvement with new music has led to performances with groups such as Australia's "Elision Ensemble", and the U.S.-based "New Century Players" and "Inauthentica". He was soloist in Berio's Points on the Curve to Find at the REDCAT Theatre, Disney Hall Los Angeles. He has also been featured on several of L.A.'s esteemed Monday Evening Concerts. His guest appearance playing Stockhausen's Mantra with pianist Vicki Ray in Piano Spheres' 2005 season was described as "first-rate" by the Los Angeles Times.
Apart from First Prize in the 2001 Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, he also won the "People's Choice Prize" and prizes for "Best performance of an Australian Work", and "Best Performance of a Classical Sonata". Other competitions Liam has won include First Prize in the Yamaha Australian Youth Piano Competition, (the prize for which was a grand piano), a "Queen's Trust" award, the City of Sydney Piano Scholarship, the Queensland Piano Competition on two occasions, and the Connecticut Young Artists Piano Competition.

Liam has formed a two-piano team with pianist Anna Grinberg, and together they explore classics of the two-piano literature, as well as create new works through commissions. Since 2006, they have commissioned 6 new works, including a major work by Ezra Laderman, President of the Academy of Arts and Letters; "Interior Landscapes", which they premiered at Steinway Hall in 2006. Critic Ivan Katz said of their duo playing at the Horowitz Series, Yale University: “I cannot imagine a finer performance, as this one had everything, illuminating every bar of the music…The audience went wild…”. As a duo they have performed on ABC Classic FM’s Sunday Live and Keys To Music programs.

Liam earned a Doctorate in piano performance from Yale University's School of Music, where his teacher was Boris Berman. After graduating, Liam shared a recital program of Prokofiev piano sonatas with Berman in Israel, and subsequently co-edited Berman's book "Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas" published by Yale University Press. Other research interests include Australian piano music, the art of piano accompaniment, and practice-led research in music. 
 

Discography

Awards
First Prize, Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, 2001
First Prize, Yamaha Australian Youth Piano Competition
Queen's Trust Award
City of Sydney Piano Scholarship
Queensland Piano Competition
Connecticut Young Artists Piano Competition
 

Media
International edge for UQ music school | UQ News | Published August, 2009
Piano Man | Graduate Contact | Published Jan, 2010

Web
Liam Viney website

Contact details
School of Music
Zelman Cowen building (51)
The University of Queensland
St Lucia Q 4072

T: +61 7 3365 3504
E:  l.viney@uq.edu.au

On this site