Henry Lewis

Please note: This event's original recitalist, Phillip James Leslie, can no longer make the event. Henry Lewis has kindly agreed to stand in.

An artist with a reputation for his original and thoughtful approach, Henry Lewis is a pianist active internationally as a soloist and chamber musician.

He has been invited to play in festivals and venues including Hellensmusic, Encuentro de Música de Santander, Schiermonnikoog Festival, The Two Moors Festival, Lichfield Festival, Dartington Festival, St George’s Bristol, Stoller Hall Manchester, The Barbican’s Milton Court, St Martin in the Fields, and the Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria.

Chamber music plays a role close to Henry’s heart, and he has collaborated with many great musicians including the clarinetist Matthew Hunt, Bruno Delepelaire (first solo cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic), the French flautist and conductor Patrick Gallois, and David Waterman (cellist of the Endellion Quartet).

Based in London, Henry is currently undertaking an artist diploma at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Charles Owen supported as a London Symphony Orchestra conservatoires scholar. Henry started playing the piano at the age of six, and until 2018 was a pupil of Catherine Miller in Bristol. He subsequently studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with Helen Krizos and Murray McLachlan, from which he graduated in 2022 winning the college’s Gold Medal, its most prestigious award for instrumental performance.

He has been fortunate enough to participate in masterclasses and receive guidance from several renowned artists including Angela Hewitt, Richard Goode, Paul Lewis, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Mahan Esfahani, Jonathan Biss, Christian Blackshaw, Steven Osborne, Philippe Cassard, Peter Donohoe and Joanna Macgregor. He has also been mentored and coached by members of the Elias String Quartet, the Gould Piano Trio, Trio Gaspard, and Ralf Gothoni.

Henry also composes (recent works include a cycle of piano miniatures taking inspiration from poetry by Guillaume Apollinaire, and an work for unaccompanied clarinet) and is an interpreter engaged with the music of our time, having recently made his debut on BBC radio 3 playing works by Luciano Berio.

Before undertaking formal musical training, Henry spent a year studying painting and stone sculpture. He continues to engage with the creating visual art alongside music making, finding parallels between the process of interpretation at the piano and the play of space with stone or paint building or removing layers of material to find previously hidden ideas and forms.

PROGRAMME

György Kurtág Játékok Book V A Voice in the Distance (For Alfred Schlee's 80th birthday) (2 minutes)

Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre Prelude in A minor (From Pièces de clavecin) (2 minutes)

György Kurtág Játékok Book V Prelude and Chorale (2 minutes)
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre Prelude in D minor (From Pièces de clavecin) (3 minutes)

György Kurtág Játékok Book V Voice in the Distance II (Hommage to Alfred Schlee 85) (2 minutes)

György Kurtág Játékok Book III Hommage a Schubert (2 minutes)

CPE Bach Fantasia in C minor Wq 63/6, H 75 (6 minutes)

Franz Schubert Piano Sonata no. 19 in C minor D 958 (i. Allegro, ii. Adagio iii. Menuetto. Allegro - Trio iv. Allegro) (33 minutes)