Stephen Lalor

Stephen Lalor was born in Sydney in 1962. He studied at the University of New South Wales (M.Mus) and the Tchaikovsky Conservatorium, Kiev, where he undertook post-graduate studies in composition, conducting and Russian mandolin/domra. His studies in the USSR were supported by Australian and Soviet government scholarships.

As a composer, Stephen’s music covers a range of styles and genres, including opera, music theatre, musicals, ballet, film, choral, vocal, theme and chamber music. His works have been performed by the Australian Opera, the Queensland Ballet and at major festivals and venues including the Sydney Opera House. Overseas, Stephen’s music has been performed in Canada, Ukraine, the Netherlands and the UK. The most recent of Stephen’s work to be recorded is his set of miniatures for mandolin and guitar, to be released on CD in Germany in 2005.

In 2003 Stephen was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship to undertake research in several European conservatoria and universities.

A plucked string specialist, Stephen is the resident mandolinist/plectrum guitarist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, based at the Sydney Opera House. He has performed at Australia’s major venues, recorded for ABC Radio and appeared in TV programs, mainly playing his own compositions and arrangements. He was featured on the 2002 ABC Classics CD release The Nightingale.

Stephen’s musical roots are in what is now called World Music. In his late teens he directed the Russian/Ukrainian instrumental group Domra and in 2003 he formed The Karpatsky Guitars reviving his Kiev training in Russian and Balkan music. The Karpatsky Guitars play regularly at major world music venues in Sydney including Carnivale, and shared the Kushti Bok program with Romanian Gypsy group Taraf de Haïdouks in a sell-out concert for the 2004 Sydney Festival.

Through his work teaching and co-ordinating courses at Sydney’s Eora Centre for Aboriginal Studies, Visual and Performing Arts, Stephen has been involved in the establishment of Opera Ochre (whose inaugural concert he conducted at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music) and as a guest artist with Aboriginal bands including The Stiff Gins and The Black Turtles. He appears as mandolinist on the Stiff Gins 2004 CD “Kingia Australias”, and is performing with them at the 2005 Yabun Aboriginal Australia Day concert.