Biography

Versatile as both a soloist and collaborative artist, Elaine Lau has performed as keyboardist and soloist with numerous orchestras, and broadcast on CBC Radio 2, National Public Radio (USA) and Rondo Classic (Finland). She has performed with ensembles including the Canadian Chamber Ensemble, Array Ensemble, Contact Contemporary Music, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. As a solo recitalist, she has been featured on the Canadian Opera Company’s Piano Virtuoso concert series, Arts and Letters Series, the Canadian Music Centre’s On the 13th! Piano Series and at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Her live performances of Canadian piano repertoire can be found online at the Canadian Music Centre.

In addition to her interest in the standard literature, Elaine also regularly premieres new works for toy, solo and duo piano, and is a founding member of junctQín, a Toronto-based contemporary keyboard collective. Recent highlights include performances at the Open Ears Festival (Kitchener-Waterloo), the International Electro-acoustic Symposium, and the Colours of Music Festival in Barrie. As duo pianist with Joseph Ferretti, Elaine has performed across North America and recorded for Capstone Records.  Recent projects include the release of reTHINK, a recording of contemporary piano music for six hands (2020, Redshift Records), funded by FACTOR and the Canada Council for the Arts; a joint commission collaboration with Quatuor Bozzini and junctQín (composers Jason Doell & Rebecca Bruton), as well as collaborations with Germaine Liu, Nicole Lizée and Lieke van der Voort as part of Canada Council’s Digital Now innovation iniative.

Elaine was coach and repetiteur for the Opera Theatre of Lucca (Italy) and for several years, collaborative pianist/instructor for the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts (USA). In addition to performing, Elaine is active nationally as an adjudicator; she also serves as a Senior Examiner for The Royal Conservatory of Music and was the recipient of the 2018 Contribution to Teaching Award from the Ontario Registered Music Teachers Association (ORMTA). As a Senior Teacher Advisor, Elaine happily contributed to MEDA (Music Education in the Digital Age), a multi-institutional project that produced educational learning tools. A member of the piano faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University since 2003, Ms. Lau has served as keyboard faculty at the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and most recently joined the piano faculty at the Royal Conservatory of Music.

Elaine holds graduate degrees in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Eugene and Elizabeth Pridonoff, and the Glenn Gould School.  Elaine began her piano studies with Shireen Moos; influential teachers include Peter Longworth, Valerie Tryon, June Caskey, Gwen Beamish, Golda Vainberg-Tatz and Karl Ulrich Schnabel.