Violist Hayley Lau is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Music at the Manhattan School of Music in New York under the tutelage of Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec on a full scholarship. Before studying in New York, she studied with Fox Chan in the Rising Stars Program at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music since the age of eight and was the recipient of the Arthur Cunningham Scholarship and the Victor Cromack & Melba Harris Cromack Memorial Scholarship. 

Hayley has won many major awards from competitions locally and abroad. In 2021, Hayley and violinist Isabella Sun won the multiples category of the NSW Secondary Schools Concerto Competition, and in 2023, Hayley was awarded the overall winner and KPO players award in the solo category of this competition. 

She was also a prizewinner of the Alf & Pearl Pollard Memorial Instrumental Awards for Performance Excellence, the Galston Young Violists Performance Competition, the American Virtuoso International Music Competition and the Hong Kong International Music Festival. In 2023, Hayley was the only successful applicant from Australia accepted into the Morningside Music Bridge program receiving full scholarship to study at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston with some of the most renowned musicians from around the world. 

Alongside being an avid soloist, Hayley is also a devoted chamber musician. Her chamber group received the second prize and the Flinders Quartet Mentorship Prize in the Musica Viva Strike A Chord National Chamber Music Championship 2022. Moreover, the group had a week long intensive residency at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) in 2022 and performed for the Galston Concert, Bendigo Chamber Music Festival and ANAM.

In 2024, Hayley has been selected as a string scholar by the Heifetz International Music Institute. She was also appointed as a Heifetz Chamber Music Fellow and received a full scholarship to participate in a 6 week chamber music seminar studying with Shmuel Ashkenasi, Nicholas Kitchen and Ralph Kirshbaum.

In addition to her work with Pinchas Zukerman, Patinka Kopec and Fox Chan, she has had the opportunity to work with Kim Kashkashian, Steven Tenenbom, Michael Klotz, Paul Neubauer, Atar Arad, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Teng Li.

Hayley plays on a John Young viola which was owned by the late Robert Mann (the founding member of the Julliard String Quartet) and generously loaned by Nicholas Mann and the Manhattan School of Music.