Pronounced a “real talent” by the Wall Street Journal, and finalist for Limelight’s 2024 and 2025 Artist of the Year, ARIA award-winning Australian pianist Andrea Lam performs with leading orchestras and conductors across Asia and the USA. Recently returned to Australia after two decades in New York, Andrea has played thrilled audiences from New York’s Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House, with works from Bach, Chopin, Mozart and Schumann to Aaron Jay Kernis, Liliya Ugay and Nigel Westlake.
Making her orchestral debut at age 13 with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, since then Andrea has performed as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Hong Kong Philharmonic, New Zealand Symphony, and San Francisco Ballet Orchestras, and all the major Australian symphony orchestras, with conductors including Sir Donald Runnicles, Jaime Martín, Alan Gilbert, Eivind Aadland, Michael Christie, Wing-sie Yip, and Simone Young. A regular guest of festivals she frequently collaborates with artists including cellist Matt Haimovitz, the Takacs Quartet, Ani Kavafian, and the Australian String Quartet.
Andrea featured in the Sydney Opera House’ International Piano Day 2020 and 2022 livestreams, New York City’s Chelsea Music Festival (including the world premiere of The Clarke Variations from Glyndebourne composer-in-residence, Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade), and the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC). By request, Andrea performed solo at the private 40th birthday celebration in Sydney for award-winning actor, Natalie Portman. Recent seasons’ performance highlights include soloist engagements with the Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmanian and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, a critically acclaimed national tour of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for Musica Viva Australia, and recitals for Sydney Opera House’ Utzon Music Series, the 2023 ABC Classic 100 concert broadcast on ABC iView. Of particular note were the world premiere performances of Ngapa William Cooper with music by Nigel Westlake and Lior, for Adelaide Festival, and a return to New York’s Chelsea Music Festival (USA) for its 15th edition.
In 2025, Andrea headlined the ABC’s new hit television series, The Piano, as classical expert alongside multi-Grammy and Emmy award-winning musician, composer and actor, Harry Connick Jr, and doyenne of Australian media, Amanda Keller. In addition to soloist engagements with the Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, with renowned conductors including Simone Young and Jaime Martín, and Benjamin Northey, Andrea toured to the USA as concerto soloist in the Grand Teton Music Festival (USA), at the invitation of Sir Donald Runnicles. With her widespread appeal, Andrea performed in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Myer Music Bowl series before an audience of 8,000 and returned for the Classic100 concerts at Arts Centre Melbourne with the MSO. Other highlights included concerts with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, with Australia Ensemble at UNSW, with the Goldner Quartet, and regional festivals such as the Four Winds’ Easter Festival, where Andrea took on the dual role of Artistic Curator, and performer.
In 2026 Andrea features with the Melbourne, Adelaide and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (NZ), in recital with Sir Bryn Terfel for the Sydney Symphony, with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, returns for Dunkeld Festival with the Australian String Quartet, at UKARIA Cultural Centre, for Castlemaine State Festival, and curates and performs in a long weekend of concerts for Four Winds (NSW). Alongside the much-anticipated Season 2 of The Piano on ABC TV and iView in March 2026 – as classical expert along pop mentor Guy Sebastian – Andrea makes her radio debut with weekly show, ‘The Art of the Piano’, on Classic FM.
Winning the 2025 ARIA Award for ‘Best Classical Album’, Andrea’s solo recording, Piano Diary (ABC Classic) earned widespread acclaim, remaining for weeks at no.1 on the ARIA Classical and Classical/Crossover charts. Invited by renowned Australian composer Matthew Hindson AM to premiere and record his ‘Sad Piano’ pieces, the album launched on ABC Classic for Australian Music Month 2024, and worldwide on Idiom Records (UK), reaching no.2 on the ARIA Classical Charts, and earning acclaim including: “Lam’s mesmerising recording… listening is a must” (pianodao.com). Earlier recordings include as pianist on the 2022 ARIA-nominated album Nocturnes (ABC Classics), described as “a winner on every count” (Sydney Morning Herald) and earning a rare 5-star review in The Australian; Mozart concerti with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (cond. Nicholas Milton); with cellist Matt Haimovitz for Pentatone Oxingale, and on New York City based Claremont Trio’s celebrated recordings, where Andrea was pianist from 2010 – 2020. Described by Strad Magazine as “one of America’s finest young chamber groups”, their Beethoven disc for Bridge received universal critical acclaim.
Lecturer in Piano at Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (University of Melbourne), board director of the Australian National Academy of Music, and for Four Winds, Andrea Lam was a Semifinalist in the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition, Silver Medalist in the 2009 San Antonio Piano Competition, and winner of the ABC’s ‘Young Performer of the Year’ Award in the Keyboard section, and the Yale Woolsey Hall Competition. Andrea holds a Bachelor of Music from the Manhattan School of Music, and Artist Diploma and Master of Music from Yale University (USA).
A native of Sydney, Australia, Andrea has featured in several nationally televised programs, including Andrea’s Concerto, documenting her life as a young pianist and her performance of Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, as guest on ABC TV’s Spicks and Specks, and A Bite To Eat With Alice, alongside her role as classical expert on The Piano (Australia).
Latest News
January 2026: ABC Classic celebrates its 50th Birthday and brand new weekly program, ‘The Art of the Piano with Andrea Lam‘ goes to air
November 2025: Andrea Lam wins ARIA Award for ‘Best Classical Album’ with Piano Diary (ABC Classic)
May – June 2025: ABC hit series The Piano features Andrea as classical expert alongside Harry Connick Jr, and host Amanda Keller, reaching over 1 million viewers each week
January 2024: Andrea Lam joins Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, at the University of Melbourne, as Lecturer in Piano (read more here).
Recent reviews:
Strauss Burleske with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simone Young, at Sydney Opera House Concert Hall:
“electrifying runs and arpeggios are carried off with calm assurance and the romantic passages are given a Rachmaninovian heft… One for the ages.”
– Limelight magazine, 2025 [5 STARS]
“Burleske, that fiendishly difficult work for solo piano and orchestra, followed, performed with admirable ease and safe technique by Andrea Lam. …her chromatic octaves cascaded with absolute control and her solos radiated with loving nuances of rubato.” [4 STARS]
– BachTrack, 2025
“The Burleske with its piano pyrotechnics was a perfect vehicle for Andrea Lam to display her astonishing piano prowess. Speedy riffs dispatched with ease were balanced with her superb handling of phrases dripping with sentimentality and all the time her playing was elegant… In this performance there was clearly a lovefest between Lam and Young and the audience, and that is great for live music.”
– ClassikOn, 2025
Utzon Series solo recital, Sydney Opera House:
“a masterful performance” [5 STARS] – Sydney Arts Guide, 2023
Schumann piano concerto in A minor, Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles:
“…Lam was meshed brilliantly with various sections of SSO. Her presentation of Schumann’s side themes made for a riveting and hugely varied set of storytelling… fine pianism full of integrity and colour” – Sydney Arts Guide, 2023
