Brieley Cutting
Pianist
About
Brieley Cutting is an Australian pianist described as having “at her disposal a myriad of different colours” (The Auckland Scoop) and as being “technically assured with excellent control of the keyboard” (The Courier Mail). Her collaborative performances have attracted praise such as "they were a joy to watch and hear" (The Courier Mail), and her chamber music concert series was described as being "a great addition to the Brisbane Scene" (RealTime Arts).
Brieley’s varied music career includes solo and collaborative concert performance alongside piano teaching, lecturing, adjudication, and concert and project curation. Brieley is dedicated to honouring the traditions of classical music whilst also supporting new music and innovative forms of presentation and collaboration.
Brieley is a National Keyboard Winner of the Symphony Australia ABC Young Performers Awards (2006) and received Second Placing in the Kerikeri National Piano Competition in New Zealand (2010). She is a fellow of the Winston Churchill Trust, attracted a Creative Sparks Award from the Brisbane City Council for her innovative concert series DeClassified Music, and has been awarded a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Griffith University.
Most recent 2023 performances have included performing solo and collaboratively for a charitable concert to raise funds for the Sydney Children's Hospital, a solo appearance at the Sydney Steinway Showroom, and two recital programs with flautist David Silva. Brieley has also worked with Jessica Lee (flute) to assist with the recording and performance for Karen North's Lyrical Flute Legends and Encores projects, and collaborated with Mark Oliveiro (composer/electronics) to create and produce the show Electro Lieder, which was nominated for Best in Music at the Sydney Fringe Festival.
As a performer, Brieley has an onstage career as soloist and chamber music collaborator, appearing in many major and regional venues throughout Australia, and for organisations such as ABC Classic FM, 4MBS and Musica Viva. Festival performances include for The Piano Mill at Stanthorpe, Festival of Voices when at Mona, and at the Crossbows, Restrung, Tyalgum, Bangalow, Australian Piano Duo, Newcastle Fringe, Sydney Fringe, and Queensland Music Festivals. Brieley’s performance career has also seen her as soloist and chamber music collaborator in European venues, which included being selected for festival gala concerts in Salzburg and Brussels, and performing in recitals facilitated by the Royal College of Music and Australian Music Foundation. As concerto soloist, Brieley has performed with orchestras including the Melbourne Symphony, Adelaide Symphony, Queensland Symphony, Melbourne Youth Orchestra, Queensland Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra, and the Nizchny-Novgorod Philharmonic; and she has performed with many leading Australian ensembles such as numerous concerts with Ensemble Trivium, Fragments Ensemble, Australia Piano Quartet, Collusion, Topology, and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players.
Recording projects have included Mahler: Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" for 2 pianos, 8 hands with fellow pianists for Melba Recordings to critical acclaim from sources such as The Guardian (Australia) and The Australian Weekend Review, and joining Collusion Music to record the albums Flashpoint (quartets by Hindemith and Messiaen) and I read the old dream slowly (all Australian chamber music) as an Ensemble in Residence at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. A recent recording project was for Fragments Ensemble, a collaboration with Judit Molnár (soprano) and Graeme Jennings (violin) to explore and present music by the Hungarian composers Béla Bartók and György Kurtág.
Conferred with Doctorate of Musical Arts from Griffith University in 2017, Brieley's research examined the role and skills required of the chamber music pianist, her work supported by a Griffith Scholarship and Australian Postgraduate Award. During these studies, Brieley founded Declassified Music. Starting initially as the Commercial Road Chamber Music Series in 2011, Declassified Music emerged in 2013 with the support of the Steinway & Sons piano distributors in Brisbane. Known for its bold imaging, free programming, and support for leading Australian musicians, Brieley's DeClassified Music events featured in two Queensland Music Festivals, were awarded a Creative Sparks Award from the Brisbane City Council, and they attracted high praise from reviewers such as The Jazz Mann and RealTime Arts Magazine. To extend her research and knowledge in the realms of pianism and artistic directorship, in 2013 Brieley was made a Fellow of the Winston Churchill Trust and supported to travel to London, the Netherlands and New York to learn from leading pianists and arts workers.
Brieley is dedicated to working in the community. She has toured for Musica Viva in Schools to Queensland, Canberra and regional Tasmania; and toured with Topology with their show Queensland at Home to regional and rural centres across Queensland. For seven years Brieley also toured with Artico Ensemble, a chamber music quartet (piano, soprano, clarinet, bass-clarinet) with the aim of bringing concert music to non-mainstream venues around Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and Sunshine Coast. Brieley is currently the accompanist for the Sydney Male Choir who give over twenty performances a year in Sydney and regional areas, including at the Sydney Town Hall.
Brieley is an experienced piano teacher, currently teaching beginners through to Masters students. Since 2020, Brieley has been Lecturer in Classical Piano at the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney. Previous experiences include being Head of Piano at the New England Conservatorium (Armidale NSW) and running Teaching Studios in Brisbane and Armidale. Brieley has lectured for the University of New England (Armidale NSW), been accompanist and examiner for the University of Queensland School of Music, and has been an adjudicator for the Queensland Conservatorium. Brieley’s students have been successful in school music competitions, the Armidale and Sydney Eisteddfods, and in gaining their Associate of Music from the AMEB. Brieley has been invited to give Masterclasses in Sydney and for regional Conservatories in New South Wales, and she was an adjudicator for piano sections in the Sydney Eisteddfod in 2021.
Raised on a farm in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales, Brieley holds Bachelor (First Class Honours) and Masters Degrees in Performance from the Queensland Conservatorium, studying with Oleg Stepanov and Natasha Vlassenko. Brieley has also studied for four years in the Performance Program at the Australian National Academy of Music with Frank Wibaut, Rita Reichman and Timothy Young, and was awarded a Postgraduate Diploma in Performance (Distinction) from the Royal College of Music in London studying with Ruth Nye, these studies made possible with a David Paul Landa Memorial Scholarship for Pianists, and support from the Australian Music Foundation and Tait Memorial Trust. Her doctoral studies were supervised primarily by Stephen Emmerson. Brieley has also studied with Pamela Page and Max Olding.
REVIEWS
The performers clearly enjoyed playing together as an ensemble and showcased virtuosic skill for the challenging repertoire.
- ClassikOn (with Ensemble Trivium)
Cutting was technically assured with excellent control of the keyboard…expressive in the darker passages…she threw herself feverishly into the Allegro movement almost to exhaustion. It was an impressive rendition…
- The Courier Mail
Both introduced excellent orchestral colour and texture into their playing, with exciting juxtaposition of two separate “orchestral” stands working against each other and then magically arriving in harmony at the end of the movements. They were a joy to watch and hear.
- The Courier Mail (with Angela Turner)
Here is a pianist who has at her disposal a myriad of different colours and who knows how to take the time to let the music speak...it was a performance of authority.
- The Auckland Scoop, New Zealand
- The Australian Weekend Review (Mahler Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” for 4 pianists, Melba Records)
Hidden gems 2014: shines brilliant new light on this masterpiece.
- The Guardian (Aus) (Mahler Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” for 4 pianists, Melba Records)
...a great addition to the Brisbane Scene.
- RealTime Arts (DeClassified Music)
And boy, has she made changes. Things went so well over the next few years that in 2013 it became DeClassified Music … Who knew classical music could be so fun, am I right?
- The Factory Diaries (DeClassified Music)
The intimate space of the Byron Theatre puts the dancers and the musicians up close and personal with the audience. In your face, it is. In your mind, it gets. … It is exciting to see the creation of new dance and music.
- Stagediary (with Collusion Music)
Collusion performed throughout with intense engagement and finesse. Their precise ensemble playing detailed the repetitions of the minimalist works on the programme…dramatic opportunities (and there were many) never went to waste. When it came to the musically expansive world of the Hindemith quartet, the players demonstrated the breadth of their stylistic accomplishment.
- Australian Modern Design (with Collusion Music)