Fantasies and Mystical Schubert | Nightingale Performing Arts Australia Piano Series
Fantasies and Mystical Schubert | Nightingale Performing Arts Australia Piano Series
Nightingale Performing Arts Australia presents the inaugural concert of the Nightingale Performing Arts Piano Series, Fantasies and Mystical Schubert: A Concert of Four Hands, featuring Kristian Chong and Cameron Roberts.
The Nightingale Piano Series showcases Australian and international pianists of exceptional calibre, carefully curated for their artistry, depth, and expressive voices.
This all-Schubert program explores the composer’s introspective and transcendent late style. Cameron performs the late Klaverstücke, before joining long-time colleague and friend Kristian Chong for the Fantasie in F-minor for four hands. Kristian concludes the program with Schubert’s final piano sonata, bringing this profound musical journey to a close.
Program:
SCHUBERT - 3 Klavierstucke D946
SCHUBERT - Fantasie in F minor for 4 hands D940
SCHUBERT- Sonata in B flat major D960
Running time: approximately 1 hour
Artist Bios
Cameron Roberts
Cameron Roberts is a London-based Australian concert pianist, pianism coach and author. He performs across Europe, Asia and the Americas as a soloist and chamber musician, collaborating with artists including Jacques Zoon, Emmanuel Pahud, Plural Ensemble, Rebecca Chan, Deanna Blacher, Judith Dodsworth and Kristian Chong. His recordings include Bach's Goldberg Variations and original piano transcriptions, amongst others, and are praised for their "originality of perspective," "astonishing wealth of detail," and "triumph of musical imagination."
Dr Roberts is the author of Optimizing Pianism: Evidence-Based Perspectives (Bloomsbury, 2025). The book is described by leading figures as "a revelation", "a forensic exposé of destructive pedagogy" and "the most inspiring music pedagogy read I've ever come across". The book explores the intersection of movement, perception and learning in pianism. It draws on science from biomechanics, physiology, neuroscience and psychology and provides practical strategies for pursuing technical excellence and expressive originality.
Born in Melbourne, he studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, and music at the same, the Australian National Academy of Music, and privately in London, Vienna, Moscow and the Tanglewood festival (as a violinist). For many years, he taught chamber music at the prestigious Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid while also completing a PhD on the physical and perceptual aspects of the pianist's touch. Currently, he combines his performing life with his private coaching, speaking engagements and occasional work as an anaesthetist.
Kristian Chong
Recognised as one of Australia's leading musicians, pianist and YAMAHA artist Kristian Chong has performed extensively throughout Australia and the UK, and in China, France, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, USA, and Zimbabwe. His performance schedule finds him in frequent demand as concerto soloist, solo recitalist and particularly as chamber musician.
As concerto soloist he has appeared with the Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne, Queensland, Sydney and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, and orchestras in the UK, New Zealand and China with conductors such as Werner Andreas Albert, Andrey Boreyko, Nicholas Braithwaite, Jessica Cottis, Fabian Russell, Roy Goodman, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Nicholas Milton, Benjamin Northey, Tuomas Hannikainen, Marcus Stenz, Arvo Volmer and Marco Zuccarini. Highlights have included Rachmaninoff 3rd with the Sydney Symphony, Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in Beijing and Canberra, and Britten with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. More recent concerto highlights include Shostakovich 2nd, Brahms 1st, Rachmaninoff 3rd, Beethoven's 3rd and Emperor in Melbourne, Ravel's Left Hand concerto in Melbourne (Australian Youth Orchestra) and Dunedin (Dunedin Symphony Orchestra), Saint-Saëns 2nd & Rachmaninoff's Paganini Rhapsody with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Malcolm Williamson's 2nd with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra.
Described by The Age as ‘a true chamber musician at work’, Kristian has collaborated extensively with many leading Australian and international musicians. Performances have included the Tinalley and Australian String Quartets, cellists Li-Wei Qin and Timo-Veikko Valve, violinists Vadim Gluzman, Rebecca Chan, Sophie Rowell, Dale Barltrop, Daniel Dodds, Jack Liebeck and Satu Vänskä, violist Christopher Moore, mezzo soprano Caitlin Hulcup, clarinettist Philip Arkinstall, baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes, (with whom he has recorded with ABC-Classics) and flautist Megan Sterling amongst many others. His festival appearances include the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Adelaide, Coriole, Huntington Estate, Mimir Chamber Music and Bangalow Festivals.
Other recent solo and chamber highlights include Oxford May Music Festival (UK) in May 2025, the 'Kristian Chong and Friends' series at the Melbourne Recital Centre, which is in its 13th year in 2026, the Canberra International Music Festival in May 2026, and many performances at UKARIA Cultural Centre in South Australia.
Kristian studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Piers Lane and Christopher Elton, with Stephen McIntyre at the University of Melbourne and with Noreen Stokes and Stefan Ammer at the Elder Conservatorium. He teaches piano and chamber music at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and is a frequent adjudicator and highly respected pedagogue.