DrNicholas Kennedy

Pianist-scholar Dr Nicholas Kennedy is among Australia's most exciting young musicians and musical thinkers. Since July 2024 he has been Associate Lecturer in Musicology and Collaborative Piano at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney (SCM), having served as a casual academic since 2022.

Nicholas completed his undergraduate studies on full scholarship at SCM, graduating with First Class Honours and the University Medal. He subsequently earned a Master of Music (Distinction) as a Leverhulme Arts Scholar at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, and, as a Research Training Program stipendiary, a PhD from SCM, with a practice-led thesis on extramusical narratives in Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas. His performance mentors have included Joan Havill, Clemens Leske, Gerard Willems, Rita Reichman, Helen Krizos, and Charles Owen, and he has additionally appeared in masterclasses with Richard Goode, Stephen Hough, Robert McDonald, Bernd Glemser, Dénes Várjon, and others. In his research activities, he is grateful for the ongoing mentorship of his PhD supervisors, Dr David Larkin and Prof. Neal Peres Da Costa.

Acclaimed for his "stirring, magnetic, and powerful" interpretations (ArtsHub), Nicholas has performed throughout Australia and internationally, as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and collaborative artist. Among an array of competition accolades, he was Open Instrumental Winner of the Australian Concerto and Vocal Competition in 2023. His debut album, The Last Piano Sonatas, was released on the Orpheus Classical label in 2021 and is available on all major streaming platforms. Recent performance projects include concerto appearances with the Great Barrier Reef, Modést, Sydney University, and East Sydney Orchestras; solo and duo recitals at Tempo Rubato (Melbourne), Arts Bundanoon, Sydney Schubert Society, PhiloMusica Kendall, Music @ St Pauls, and Friday Music at St Stephens; a series of duo recitals with London-based cellist Clare Juan; a lecture-recital with cellist Zoltán Szabó on both historical and modern instruments; the première of miniatures by Australian composer Adam Melzer; and a recital with colleague Alexander Yau of Brahms’s works for two pianos. 

Nicholas’s diverse and ever-expanding research portfolio prizes the complex relationship between performance and musical meaning, focussing particularly on piano music of the nineteenth century. His work engages with modalities of artistic research, Formenlehre studies, and historically and analytically informed hermeneutics. In 2020 Nicholas was named winner of the Young Scholars’ Chopinological Essay Competition (Chopin Institute, Warsaw) for his article on Chopin’s Fantasy Op. 49, which was subsequently published in The Chopin Review. He is frequently invited to present at international symposia including McrMAC in Manchester (SMA, 2025), Performers(’) Present in Singapore (2023), and Reimagining Musical Programming in Sydney (2022).

Beyond his performing, research, and teaching activities, Nicholas reviews concerts for Limelight magazine, and is frequently invited to adjudicate music competitions including Sydney Eisteddfod, Ryde Eisteddfod, and the Palladian Intercollegiate Competition. In June 2026 he will travel to Surabaya, Indonesia, to adjudicate and give masterclasses. Nicholas is an Associate of the Australian Guild of Collaborative Pianists, a member of the international Society for Musical Analysis, and a committee member for the Sydney Chapter of the Musicological Society of Australia (MSA). He was Prize Committee Chair for the MSA Student Symposium at UNSW in 2025. In 2024, he curated an art song concert, "Songs of Hope," in collaboration with SCM vocal students, with all proceeds going to Lifeline. Within SCM, he is a member of the steering committees for Research and Student Life, and has served on admissions panels for Collaborative Piano and the PhD program.

Nicholas is also an accomplished cellist. His interests outside of music include aviation, politics, comedy, and good food.