Petra Kirchner

Petra Premanjali Kirchner is a keyboard artist and researcher whose work integrates performance, improvisation, and historical scholarship into a unified artistic practice. She is currently undertaking a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music under the supervision of Neal Peres Da Costa. Originally from Vienna, she completed her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music Studies in Piano Performance at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, under the guidance of Natasha Vlassenko.

Her research explores the relationship between musical schematic structures in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century repertoire and the expressive principles of historical performance practice and bel canto aesthetics, with attention to improvisatory aspects of performance and interpretation. Focusing on the keyboard works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Frédéric Chopin, she examines how emotional trajectory, rhetorical shaping, and expressive timing, alongside ornamentation, cantabile tone, and improvisatory elaboration, inform historically informed interpretation through schema theory, partimento, and historical solfeggio traditions. Drawing on work with Job IJzerman and Nicholas Baragwanath, her research connects analytical frameworks with historically informed performance practice, including improvisatory approaches drawn from historical models, early recordings, and piano rolls.

Her research on integrating schematic compositional techniques with historical performance practice has been realised in orchestral and ensemble contexts, demonstrating the practical application of these approaches in live performance settings.