The fortepianist - portrait of Dr Geoffrey Lancaster, 2011

Geoffrey Lancaster AM (b. 1954), fortepianist and orchestral director, grew up in Dubbo and attended the Canberra School of Music 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 inspired performance movement, he has appeared as pianist and conductor with such orchestras as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Royal Stockholm, 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 Barockorchester Basel; has lectured at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Royal Academy of Music; and holds several emeritus and professorial appointments. Among his many honours are ARIA and Gramophone awards for some of his more than fifty recordings, Honorary Fellowship of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the Order of Australia. He was ACT Australian of the Year in 2006.

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

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Andrew Lu OAM 2013
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program