The Pathway(s) to 'Chosen?': Transcending borders of Time, Place, and Performative Discipline
Designed as a homage to pianist Peter Wallfisch and his wife, cellist and Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch (who turned 100 last year), Chosen? is conceived as a multi-dimensional, intergenerational project weaving personal stories through music, visual media, and mime/dance. Each component responds to moments of politically driven violence involving the loss of innocent life—from the World Wars to the Killing Fields, the Charlie Hebdo attack, and the loss of Flight MH17. Though each event was shocking, the artistic responses informing the project offer hope through art.
The final manifestation—with planned performances in 2027 in Southeast Asia, Australia, and Europe—will include storytelling, visual installation, live performance, dance, improvisation, and audience integration. Led by Bernard Lanskey and Jun Koh, collaborators include Adeline Wong (composer), Liz Sergeant-Tan (dancer), Stephanie Tan (producer, animator, clarinettist), Thomas Green (sonic projections), and Koh Dawn (visual art and installation), working with string players across three continents. While the live performances feature works by Debussy and Bridge, culminating in a new piano trio by Adeline Wong, the pre-performance installation aims to include music by Him Sophy, Andrew Schultz, Leonard Cohen, Alban Berg, and Olivier Messiaen—all of which will also inform Wong’s work.
This presentation introduces the project, offering insight into the discrete elements that will ultimately be interwoven with Wong’s Piano Trio, currently in gestation. Illustrated excerpts from Bridge’s Lament for Catherine (aged 9) and Debussy’s Violin Sonata, performed by violinist Julia Hill, will give an initial sense of the upcoming project. The presentation will also feature Dawn Koh leading a brief audience interactive session, developing material subsequently to be interwoven into the final manifestation. Presenters will frame the project’s evolution through the symposium’s themes: timelessness and timeliness, fantasy as deeper truth, and the interconnectedness of music, dance, AI-generated film, animation, and visual design. Finally, Adeline Wong will share how awareness of this framing is coming to influence her upcoming composition.
Prof Bernard Lanskey
Bernard Lanskey is an Australian pianist and academic leader whose artistic identity is rooted in a lifelong dialogue between performance and intellectual inquiry. Having held senior leadership roles for more than three decades across three continents, he has influenced generations of musicians across multiple genres and from around the globe.
After completing a First Class Honours degree in music, philosophy and mathematics at the University of Queensland, he studied at the Schola Cantorum in Paris before joining the Royal College of Music’s first Master of Music cohort, graduating in piano performance under the mentorship of Peter Wallfisch.
His leadership roles at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, and the Queensland Conservatorium all involved periods of significant institutional and programme transformation. In each, Lanskey has championed the importance of flexible, student-centred learning paths, recognising the diversity of student backgrounds and destinies. He has advocated unwaveringly that music is ultimately a single and integrated field transcending distinctions of genre or instrument.
His current artistic practice involves event curation, building teams which integrate performance, interdisciplinarity, and technology. Building on this philosophy, he has curated chamber music festivals in France, Switzerland, Greece, Singapore, and China.
Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University