Winner of the prestigious 2006 Australian National Piano Award, Amir Farid is a Melbourne-based solo pianist, associate artist and chamber musician. He has been described as ‘a highly creative musician – a pianist of great intelligence and integrity. He brings strong musical substance to all that he does, imbuing it with his own particular experience and understanding’.

In 1995 Mr Farid commenced studies with Prof. Ronald Farren-Price, and completed his Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Melbourne with Honours in 2004. Here he won the Maude Harrington Accompanists Prize for 2 years in a row, the Una Bourne scholarship for excellence in performance in 2002 and the Faculty Concerto Competition in 2004. In February 2001, Mr Farid toured the USA and New Zealand as pianist with the ‘Young Voices of Melbourne’ as part of a faculty promotional tour.

From 2003 to 2005 he attended the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), where he worked with Rita Reichman, Geoffrey Tozer and Timothy Young. Among his performances were the Dvorak Piano Quintet with the ANAM quartet, Beethoven Sonatas with internationally renowned cellist Alexander Baillie, works for cello and piano with cellist Mats Lidstrom, the Australian Premiere of Beethoven’s piano Concerto No.4 arranged by Beethoven himself for piano and string quintet, and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire with soprano Merlyn Quaife.

Other collaborations throughout Mr Farid’s career include saxophonist Claude Delangle, clarinetist Dong Jun-Mo, contralto Liane Keegan, pianist Max Olding, the Tin Alley String Quartet and mezzo-soprano Pamela Turner.

Throughout his studies, Mr Farid has participated in masterclasses and lessons with names such as Andrew Ball, Aquiles Delle Vigne, Nikolai Demidenko, Christopher Elton, Gordon Fergus-Thompson, Mark Gasser, Angela Hewitt, Ian Holtham, Leslie Howard, Julian Jacobson, Geoffrey Lancaster, Stephen McIntyre, Malcolm Martineau, Dominique Merlet, Ian Munro, Ruth Nye, Adrian Oetiker, Max Olding, Bart van Oort, Christina Ortiz, John Perry, Natasha Vlassenko, Frank Wibaut, Gerard Willems and Oxana Yablonskaya.

As a concerto soloist, Mr Farid has performed with the Melbourne Symphony, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra (formerly Australia Pro Arte), Orchestra Victoria, Melbourne Youth and ANAM Orchestras, working with such conductors as Graham Abbott, Peter Bandy, Alexander Briger, Brett Dean, Marko Letonja and Benjamin Northey. In October 2007, he was soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.2 as part of ABC Classic FM’s Concerto Countdown Gala Concert, broadcast live across Australia. Mr. Farid will be performing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in mid-2009.

He has appeared on Australian television as a soloist on ABC TV’s Sunday Arts Program and Network Ten’s ‘Totally Wild’. He appears frequently on Australian radio, and has given live to air performances on ABC Classic FM, 3MBS FM and ABC Melbourne.

Other solo competition successes include winning the 2005 Hephzibah Menuhin and 3MBS Performer of the Year awards, 1st prizes and Gold Medallion in the 2003 Dandenong Festival’s three major sections, the Encouragement Prize in the 2007 Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, and category finalist in the 2008 Royal Overseas League Music Competition in London, where he was awarded an Australian Music Scholarship. In 2008, Mr Farid was one of 2 musicians selected to represent Australia in the European Broadcasting Union’s New Talent Competition.

As a chamber musician, Mr Farid is pianist of the acclaimed Benaud Trio (www.benaudtrio.com), winning the Piano Trio prize at the prestigious 2005 Australian Chamber Music Competition, and with whom he undertook a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. They are currently musicians-in-residence at 3MBS FM. As an accompanist, he was winner of the prize for best pianist at the 2006 Mietta Song Recital award, and the 2007 Geoffrey Parsons Award.

From September 2008, Mr Farid will be undertaking postgraduate studies with Professor Andrew Ball at the Royal College of Music London, made possible by the generosity of the following organisations and individuals:

• Neville Arthur
• Australia Business Arts Foundation
• Australian Music Foundation
• Australian National Academy of Music
• Australian National Piano Award
• Rosalind de Bruin
• Donovan Johnson Memorial Scholarship, Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne
• Ian Potter Cultural Trust
• John Garran
• Lois Goodin
• Rosemary McIndoe
• Mietta Song Recital Award
• Richard Mitchell, Knox Community Arts Centre
• Royal College of Music
• Swiss Global Foundation
• Ross and Daphne Turnbull

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