William Schmidt – Pianist and Organist

William Schmidt has two Masters degrees in piano performance from the University of Melbourne and the Music and Arts University of Vienna, Austria. He has performed as a soloist many times in Melbourne and interstate, including live-to-air performances on 3MBS radio and ABC Classic FM, and has created and performed numerous themed full-length solo concert programs at Tempo Rubato in Brunswick: “From Madrid to Melbourne” (2019), “Sans Paroles” (2021) and “To Spring” (2022, as part of the Flinders Quartet’s August residency) and “Reverie and Revelry” (2023).

William was a soloist for the 3MBS Kawai Live Sessions at the Lady Marigold Southey Performance Studio in 2021, and performed in nine concerts as part of the 2022 Albury Chamber Music Festival, both as a soloist and in collaboration with Dr. Mario Dobernig, Sally-Anne Russell, Yi Wang, John Bolton-Wood and others. In December 2023, William was one of the pianists for the the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic’s prestigious “Carols at the Cathedral” events directed by Andrew Wailes.

Aside from Star Chorale, William also regularly accompanies Box Hill Chorale and Victoria Chorale, and frequently works as a collaborative pianist with Promac Productions, the Australian Contemporary Opera Company and the Art of Sound Orchestra. For the last few years William has been an official accompanist at the Ringwood Eisteddfod and the Monash Youth Music Festival. He is a sought-after accompanist for exams and recitals at the Sir Zelman Cowan School of Music at Monash University, and for Australian Music Examinations Board exams.

As a composer and arranger, William has had his commissioned works performed by musicians and ensembles such as Elyane Laussade, Glenn Riddle, Marianne Rothschild, Collide Trio, and the Preston Symphony Orchestra. William has been a featured composer for the Camberwell Music Society, and his piano and chamber works were the subject of a two-hour episode of the 3MBS program “Illuminations”. His violin and piano composition “Argentinian Etching” appears on the 2014 Move Records CD “The Sky is Melting”.

William has received the Australian Music Foundation’s Inaugural Guy Parsons Award, the Australian National Piano Award’s 2008 Travelling Scholarship, an Australian Postgraduate Award from the federal government, first prizes in the Australian Youth Piano Recital and the National Pharmacies Piano Concerto Competition, various University of Melbourne scholarships and many other awards.