Lara Dodds-Eden, piano | Tait Awardee 2006

I was awarded £750 by the Tait Memorial Trust in 2006, just as I embarked on my first year of post-graduate studies specialising in piano accompaniment at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

This award felt like a welcome from a community of like-minded antipodean ex-pats: it made me feel like I was in the right place, and that pursuing my musical studies was worthwhile. I deeply appreciated this as I was so far from my family and trying to manage the precarity of student life and the breathless pace of London.

With the help of this award, my one year programme became seven years of intensive study and performance in London.  During that time I performed all around the UK and further afield, at venues including the Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room, Snape Maltings, the Slovakian Philharmonic and Amsterdam’s Het Concertgebouw, and Sydney’s Angel Place Recital Hall. During this period I also performed often with other Tait Awardees, including singers Derek Welton, Seija Knight and Eleanor Greenwood. I performed at the Paxos International Music Festival in Greece from 2009-2013, and from 2010-2013 was Artistic Director.

I recently returned to live in London after completing doctoral studies at the University of Toronto, where I researched the contemporary implications of singing Lieder in English translation. My studies in Canada followed a year spent as resident collaborative pianist at the Banff Centre in the Canadian Rockies, where I had the chance to perform with dozens of musicians from across the world. This included a performance as soloist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and recitals with cellist Gavriel Lipkind, pianist Ronan O’Hora and Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew.

Please see my website for further information or news of future projects or to get in touch. I thank the donors past and present for their support and encouragement of young artists like myself as we navigate the very many challenges and joys of this vocation. 

Lara’s website: https://laradodds-eden.com/