Deborah Lander
Assistant Professor of Viola

Degrees:
PhD, University of Newcastle (Australia)

At UK Since 2008

Phone:

Email: debviola@gmail.com

Deborah Lander is native to Sydney, Australia, however her career as chamber musician, soloist, and pedagogue has taken her to the world’s major concert halls and Universities.

Dr. Lander became a member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra whilst a student with Winifred Durie in Sydney. Following graduation, she travelled to London, where she was invited by Sir Neville Marriner to become a member of his prestigious ensemble the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. With them, she recorded extensively and performed in the world’s major concert halls, including Royal Festival Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Musikverein, the Mozarteum, Teatro de Colon, and Carnegie Hall. In addition to her commitments with “the Academy”, Dr Lander was a member of the Romney Trio and was principal with the London Bach Orchestra.

As soloist, Dr. Lander has performed with the Sydney Symphony, London Bach, Townsville Festival, Ku-ring-gai Symphony and University of Newcastle Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. She was a prize winner at Tunbridge Wells and in the Park Lane Group’s ‘Young Artists and the 20th Century’ Competition, and has been recitalist in England (most notably at the Purcell Room, South Bank), Europe, the USA, Canada and throughout Australia. She gave a joint lecture/recital on Australian Viola Music at the XXXIVth International Viola Congress in Montreal, and was recitalist and teacher at the XXXVth Congress in Adelaide, Australia.

Dr. Lander has long been an advocate of the commission and performance of new music, and has given premieres of works written for her by Elena Kats-Chernin, Daryl Pratt, Mark Isaacs, Margery Smith, Colin Spiers, Jackie Orszaczky, Robert Sherlaw Johnson and Julian Milone. She was a member of the contemporary chamber ensemble Sydney Alpha, with whom she also gave many premieres. Symphony orchestra experience includes many performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra (London) and guest principal positions with the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

Dr. Lander holds a PhD from the University of Newcastle and is the author of the Australian Music Examinations Board’s Viola Syllabus and Technical Work Book. In 2005, she was the host of the Australian and New Zealand Viola Society’s International Viola Conference in Newcastle.

Her CD of works written for her, VIOLA VIBES, was released in Oct, 2006, and received high praise  in a Strad Magazine review.

Dr Lander  joined the faculty at the Unversity of Kentucky in 2008. Prior to that she held the tenured viola position at the University of Newcastle (Australia) for 11 years, and has served on the string faculties of the Sydney Conservatorium and the Australian Institute of Music. She has given masterclasses in London and throughout the USA and Australia. Her students are contributing to the advance of the viola as pedagogues and players world-wide, most notably in the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Halle Orchestra.