Lesley Young By the age of twenty, Australian pianist Lesley Young had made many radio and television broadcasts, played at the Sydney Opera House and appeared with all leading Australian orchestras. For three years in succession she represented Queensland in the Commonwealth Final of the prestigious ABC Concerto Competition, winning the competition outright in 1975. The Hugh Nevill-Smith Overseas Scholarship and an Australia Council Music Board Award enabled Lesley to undertake postgraduate performance studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, and subsequently a Master’s degree at the Royal College of Music. She studied with, amongst others, Max Olding, Ryszard Bakst, Benjamin Kaplan and Yonty Solomon, and in master classes with Vlado Perlemuter, Jorge Bolet (at the Edinburgh Festival), Ronald Smith, Sir William Glock, Roger Woodward, Yuji Takahashi, Sergei Dorensky, Helmut Roloff and John Lill. Since winning first prize in the 1976 Dudley Piano Competition and her critically acclaimed Wigmore Hall debut the following year, Lesley has established a reputation as soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe and Australia, playing with major orchestras and performers, and commissioning and premiering a number of new works. Her busy teaching schedule has included work with gifted children, master classes and workshops for both students and teachers and, in Australia, the establishment of the Keyboard Department at James Cook University. Lesley is much in demand as an adjudicator, and tutors on a number of piano courses, both in England and abroad. Her current position as Head of Keyboard Studies at Colchester Institute reflects her strong commitment to education and to the specialist needs of young musicians.
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