Erin Helyard has been acclaimed as an inspiring conductor and a virtuosic and expressive performer of the harpsichord and fortepiano.
Erin graduated in harpsichord performance from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with first-class honours and the University Medal. He completed his Masters in fortepiano performance and a PhD in musicology with Tom Beghin at the Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Montreal. His monograph Clementi and the woman at the piano: virtuosity and the market for music in eighteenth-century London was published by Oxford University Studies in Enlightenment in 2022.
As Artistic Director and co-founder of the celebrated Pinchgut Opera and the Orchestra of the Antipodes (Sydney) he has forged new standards of excellence in operatic performance in Australia. Operas under his direction have been awarded Best Opera at the Helpmann Awards for three consecutive years (2015-2017) and he has received two Helpmann Awards for Best Musical Direction: one for a fêted revival of Saul (Adelaide Festival) in 2017 and the other for Hasse’s Artaserse (Pinchgut Opera) in 2019. Together with Richard Tognetti, Erin won an ARIA and an AIR award for Best Classical Album in 2020. In 2023 he was named Limelight’s Critics’ Choice Australian Artist of the Year.
Erin is an Associate Professor at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and appears courtesy of Pinchgut Opera.
