Multi-Focus Performance: Piano, theory

Australian pianist Liam Viney is a soloist, collaborative artist and teacher. First prize-winner of the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, Liam has performed regularly in Australia, the U.S., Europe and Israel. Now based in Los Angeles, Liam is pursuing a multi-faceted musical career centered on performing a broad range of musical styles, with an emphasis on new music and ideas. 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. He has given solo recitals and chamber music performances in concert series and festivals such as the the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, (where he premiered the chamber ensemble version Rautavaara's Clarinet Concerto with Richard Stolzman), The Dartington International Summer School, (where he gave the British premiere of Matthew Hindson's Plastic Jubilation), the "New Paths" festival of New York, Melbourne's "Next Wave" festival, the Brisbane Festival, the "Keynote", "Celebrations", and "Kawai" series of Australia, and the "Tyalgum Festival". He has also recorded solo radio programs for ABC FM radio's "Young Australia" program and 4MBS radio station.

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 with CalArts' "New Century Players" in Berio's Points on the Curve to Find at REDCAT, Disney Hall. He has also been featured on several of L.A.'s several of L.A.'s esteemed Monday Evening Concerts. Other recent performances include a duo appearance with violinist Roberto Cani in the UCLA Live series at Royce Hall, Los Angeles, with the great ballerina Nina Ananiashvili and the Georgian State Ballet. He also made a guest appearance playing Stockhausen's Mantra with Vicki Ray in Piano Spheres' 2005 season, described as "first-rate" by the Los Angeles Times.

Liam has won competitions in both Australia and the U.S.. Apart from First Prize in the 2001 Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, he also won secondary prizes there such as the "People's Choice Prize" and prizes for "Best performance of an Australian Work", and "Best Performance of a Classical Sonata". The Courier Mail's review of the competition's final stage with orchestra described his playing as having "maturity and flair". Other competitions Liam has won include First Prize in the Yamaha Australian Youth Piano Competition, (the prize for which was a grand piano), a coveted "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 four 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. They have also commissioned composers include Shaun Naidoo and Marc Lowenstein. 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…"

Liam earned a Doctorate in piano performance from Yale University's School of Music, where his teacher was Boris Berman. After graduating, in 2006 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. He also received a Master of Music degree from Yale. Earlier, he completed his Bachelor of Music with First-class Honours at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, where he performed the Australian premiere of Peter Sculthorpe's Simori at the opening ceremony of the Conservatorium's new building, and studied with Natasha Vlassenko, and Stephen Savage. Liam is on the keyboard faculty at the California Institute of the Arts.