Martin Jones
Martin Jones has been one of Britain's most highly regarded solo pianists since first coming to international attention in 1968 when he received the Dame Myra Hess Award. The same year he made his London debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and his New York debut at Carnegie Hall, and ever since has been in demand for recitals and concerto performances on both sides of the Atlantic.
He is a prolific recording artist and his many discs for Nimbus Records include the complete solo piano works of Mendelssohn, Brahms, Debussy, Grainger, Szymanowski (voted Best Instrumental Recording of 1996 by the Spanish magazine CD Compact) and the sonatas of Alun Hoddinott. The complete solo piano works of Stravinsky was released in July 1997, and he has recently completed a project to record several Spanish piano masters. The soundtrack of the film Howard's End features Martin Jones performing Grainger's Bridal Lullaby and Mock Morris.
He has also recorded Grainger's Tribute to Foster conducted by John Eliot Gardiner for Philips, Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto for ASV, and a recital CD with horn player David Pyatt for Erato Disques.
Martin Jones has performed as concerto soloist with many of the leading British orchestras, as well as in the USA and Russia, and toured Canada as soloist with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra. Recent performances include Shostakovich's Concerto No 1 in Central and South America with the London Festival Orchestra, a regional tour playing Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the Halle Orchestra, the Britten Piano Concerto in St Petersburg, the Schoenberg Piano Concerto with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and Scharwenka's Piano Concerto No 1 in Louisiana.
His performance repertoire, as well as encompassing most of the standard works for piano, also includes unusual concertos such as the Busoni Concerto, which he performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Norman Del Mar. He has also championed the music of British composers and has performed concertos by Britten, Benjamin, Mathias, McCabe and Lambert. He gave the first performance of the revised version of Alun Hoddinott's Third Concerto at the 1974 BBC Promenade Concerts, and recorded Hoddinott's Second Concerto with Andrew Davis and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for Decca.
Martin Jones has given recitals throughout Great Britain, and as well as regular broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, he has given recitals for Brussels Radio, RTE in Dublin and ABC in Australia. In the USA he has served as jury member on a number of international piano competitions, and performed in New York, Washington, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, Utah and California. In Los Angeles he gave a recital as part of the 1994 UK/LA Celebration of British Arts, which was broadcast live on KUSC Radio. In 1996 he became the first major British artist to give a solo recital in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and in 1998 he gave a solo recital at the Adelaide Festival.