Andrew Joyce
Before joining the NZSO in September 2010, Andrew spent five years freelancing in London, during which time he worked regularly with the London Symphony & London Philharmonic Orchestras, touring and performing in the world's great concert halls. He also played as Guest Principal with Northern Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A dedicated chamber musician, Andrew co-founded the Puertas Quartet who have performed in both the UK and New Zealand to great critical acclaim, and recorded two CDs for Atoll Records.

He performs regularly in a trio with pianist Diedre Irons and NZSO Concertmaster, Vesa-Matti Leppanen.

Born in Norwich, England, at 11 he went to London to pursue his musical studies at the Purcell School of Music where his teachers were Amanda Truelove and Michal Kaznowski. He continued his studies at the Royal College of Music with Alexander Boyarsky and the Musikhochschule Lübeck with Troels Svane, as a holder of the coveted DAAD Scholarship. He has performed in masterclasses with the late Bernard Greenhouse, Alexander Baillie, David Geringas, Alexander Rudin, Natalia Gutman, Karine Georgian, Leonid Gorokhov, the Takacs Quartet and the Kopelman Quartet. Violinist, and Artistic Director of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Gordan Nikolitch, also played a very important role in his artistic development and continues to be a source of inspiration.

He plays a beautiful old English cello by Thomas Dodd, c.1800, kindly loaned to him by Old and New Strings Ltd.

Rae de Lisle
is one of New Zealand’s foremost piano pedagogues. Currently Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Auckland, she has produced many outstanding students, most notably John Chen, first prizewinner of the 2004 Sydney International Piano Competition. Since then her students have won all the major piano competitions in New Zealand and have also been prizewinners internationally in the Lev Vlassenko Australasian Piano Competition, the Bradshaw and Buono Competition in New York, and the Perrenoud Foundation International Piano Competition.

Rae is Artistic Director of the Wallace National Piano Competition and the Wallace International Piano Festival. She is respected as as an adjudicator and has been on international competition juries in Singapore, Dublin and America. She is also an examiner for the New Zealand Music Examination Board.

Rae’s groundbreaking PhD research into focal dystonia, the most devastating of musician’s injuries, has resulted in specific concepts about instrumental retraining which has led to presentations and keynote speeches throughout the world. Her PhD has has received international recognition and is published by Paladinomedia.

For many years Rae has been researching methods of piano technique, interviewing pianists and pedagogues in America, England, Europe, Australia and New Zealand on this subject. Her experience in teaching students from the very beginning to international competition winners, as well as her own studies with renowned pedagogues Brigitte Wild (student of Claudio Arrau), Cyril Smith (student of Rachmaninoff) and Maria Curcio (student of Artur Schnabel) gives her a unique perspective on the development of injury-preventative piano technique at every level, from the beginner to the advanced pianist.

In 2015 Rae was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to music.