Lucas O'Brien
Violin
Lucas joined WASO in 2018.
Lucas O’Brien was born in Adelaide and started learning the violin at the age of 3. He began his Bachelor of Music Performance (violin) at the Australian Institute of Music, before completing it at the Victorian College of the Arts. Following 4 years of full scholarship at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne, he furthered his studies at the University of Western Australia.
This culminated in his completion of a Doctor of Musical Arts in 2018, exploring expertise acquisition as applied to violinists in the string quartet.
His principal teachers during this period were Semyon Kobets, Alice Waten and Paul Wright. In addition, he has received tutelage from many of the world’s leading violinists and chamber groups, including Leonidas Kavakos, Christian Tetzlaff, Ernst Kovacic, Richard Tognetti, Boris Kuschnir, the Takács String Quartet, the Jerusalem Quartet and the St Lawrence String Quartet.
Highlights from his chamber music career include competing in the 2009 finals of the Asia-Pacific Chamber music in Melbourne as the violinist of the Lorelei Trio and performing with members of the Scharoun Ensemble (of the Berlin Philharmonic) as a participant of the Zermatt Music Festival & Academy (2008, 2009). Beginning his full-time tutti position with WASO in 2018, his orchestral career has seen him perform with many of the nation’s leading orchestras, including the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and more recently the Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra. He was also was awarded the inaugural participant of the Concertmaster Development Program with the Perth Symphony Orchestra.
Aside from his passion for performing music, Lucas also enjoys teaching, both privately and as a violin teacher at the Junior Music School of the University of Western Australia.