BigEarsRecords: Colin Stone Pianist Biography

C o l i n S t o n e

Colin_Stone

Colin Stone first came to prominence in 1986 when he won the Royal Over-Seas League Piano Competition in London, his performance of Liszt's Dante Sonata at the Queen Elizabeth Hall being a notable triumph. In the same year, encouragement at the Busoni competition in Italy and a highly acclaimed Wigmore Hall debut launched his career as a soloist.At the final of the prestigious Young Concert Artists Trust audition a year earlier, the famous conductor Sir Charles Groves praised the young pianist for his 'rare musical qualities and tipped him to succeed at the very highest level'. Many concerto engagements followed including Mozart's K271 in a tour of Italy with the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Beethoven's Emperor at the Sheldonian Theatre, the two Brahms concerti, the Schumann at St. John Smith's Square, the Tchaikovsky B flat minor, Rachmaninov's 2nd, both Shostakovich concerti and the Cesar Frank with Grant Llewellyn and the National Centre for Orchestral Studies Orchestra.In 1989 he made his debut on BBC Radio 3 and, following the success of his live Concert Hall broadcast in 1990 and the subsequent Prokofiev series, is regularly invited to record for Radio 3. A highlight of 1992 was a tour of Canada, which included a recording of a live recital at Concordia University for CBS in Montreal. Later that year he began a series of recordings for Pickwick's IMP Masters label with the then recently formed London Mozart Trio.

Their recordings of Trios by Schubert and Dvorak were enthusiastically received by Gramophone magazine and their recording of Schubert's Trio in B flat D.898 was the overall first choice from twenty recordings on the BBC Radios 3's Building a Library; 'The best since Casals, Cortot and Thibaud'.

Colin Stone's first solo CD, of transcriptions by Prokofiev of his own theatre music, was released in 1994 on the United label and has been followed by a CD for Olympia of the two piano sonatas by Schostakovich. The review for Classic CD magazine considered the Shostakovitch CD 'an outstanding release' and commented on the 'overwhelming mastery' of the performances: Gramophone magazine have included it in their Good CD Guide.

In 1998 Colin gave the inaugural recital in Jerusalem for the Anglo Israeli Piano Platform which was broadcast live. In the same year, with cellist Leonid Gorokhov, he performed at major venues in St. Petersburg and Switzerland.

Colin has released three CDs of solo piano music on the Merlin Classics label with major works by Schubert, Chopin and Schumann ,as well as music by contemporary composers—Andre Tchaikovsky, Malcolm Williamson and Robert Keeley. He gave the world premiere of Keeley's piano concerto Entourages in a live broadcast on BBC Radio 3 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in March 2001.

Colin combines his performing activities with his role as a professor at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music.