Emerging Women in Music with Isobel Archer

The Women's Club is thrilled to announce the continuation of our celebrated Women in Music program: a celebration of the incredible contributions of women to the world of music, with a special emphasis on Australian Music.

Isobel Archer is one of Australia’s exciting new talents in classical music.

Inspired to learn the piano by her first teacher John Colwill, Isobel was always doing something musical as a child: playing the clarinet, violin, or piano, or writing music. A graduate from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, she studied a Bachelor of Music (Piano Performance) under principal study teacher Clemens Leske. Accepted to the Conservatorium at the age of 15, Isobel was one of the youngest ever graduates from the University of Sydney. During her studies, Isobel was awarded multiple music prizes and scholarships including the Hon. James Thomas Walker Prize, the inaugural Doug and Margot Anthony (BUDD) Music Grant, the Gilliam Prize, the Anne Boyd AM Prize, and the USYD Vice Chancellor’s Global Mobility Scholarship.

Competition successes include the Queensland Young Pianist’s Award, which she won in 2019, and gold prize in the Bangkok International Piano Competition 2021. Isobel has performed as a collaborative and orchestral pianist with the Dots+Loops festival, Queensland Youth Orchestra and George Ellis Orchestra in Sydney, and has been awarded her AmusA on both piano and clarinet. In 2023 she attended the Cortona Sessions for New Music in Italy and the European American Musical Alliance in France.

She has participated in several masterclasses and workshops on piano with internationally acclaimed artists including Sergei Edelmann, Annique Göttler, Eric Schoones, Gustav Alink, and Steinway artist Tania Tachkova.

Interested in creating new music, Isobel is one of the founders of the chamber group Chaos Collective. The group gave its inaugural concert in the Chau Chak Wing Museum in Sydney in September 2022. Isobel is also and emerging orchestral conductor, after studying conducting under Mark Shapiro, Christ Kim, and George Ellis. In 2022, Isobel performed the Saint-Saëns second piano concerto as soloist with the Noosa Orchestra and returned in April 2023 as guest conductor.