Renowned virtuoso pianist and conductor Geoffrey Lancaster is also a lecturer at the Australian National University School of Music, and has been instrumental in bringing together Australia’s largest working public collection of historic keyboards.

Students have this extraordinary collection available to them to use. Imagine being able to play on an early piano, which may have produced the sounds that Mozart adored.

The rarest keyboard in the Australian National Keyboard Institute collection is made by Henri Henrion probably in the early 1770s, and is one of only two in the world. Students can play some of the world’s greatest piano repertoire just as the composer intended.

During his research looking for keyboards, Geoffrey discovered that the first piano that came out to Australia with the first fleet is still here in a private collection, and another collector has the fifth oldest piano in the world. The number of culturally significant keyboards that reside in private collections here is amazing. Geoffrey has discovered around 900 privately owned special items around the country. He thinks that Australia is a veritable ark of historic pianos!

Watch ABC video

Geoffrey Lancaster's Recent Performance Review

Read a review of Geoffrey Lancaster's recent performance on 1 September of the Mozart KV 503 piano concerto, as soloist and conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (from the keyboard) Sydney Morning Herald 5 September