Jack Gibbons | |
|---|---|
 Gibbons in 2004 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 1962 |
| Genres | Classical |
| Occupation(s) | Pianist, composer |
| Website | jackgibbons.com |
Jack Gibbons (born 2 March 1962) is an English-born American classical composer and virtuoso pianist. [1] [2] [3]
Gibbons was born in England. His father was a scientist [4] and his mother a visual artist. [5] He began his piano studies in Stockton-on-Tees, later continuing in Oxford. He began performing in public at the age of 10. He made his London debut in 1979, [6] at the age of 17, with an all-Alkan concert that included Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano [5] and Ouverture from Op. 39. [7] At the age of 20 he won First Prize in the Newport International Pianoforte Competition, [6] with a performance with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. In 1984 he made his Queen Elizabeth Hall debut [8] performing J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations , Chopin's "Funeral March" Sonata and Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit , after which recital The Times wrote that Gibbons "could be Britain's answer to Ivo Pogorelić". [9] [10] Since then Gibbons has played in many prestigious venues and festivals all over the world, as recitalist and concerto soloist. [11]
For 16 years, from 1990 to 2005, Gibbons gave annual all-Gershwin concerts at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, [5] with a gap in 2001 following a near-fatal car accident. These concerts feature Gibbons' own note-for-note reconstructions and transcriptions of the original recorded improvisations and concert works of George Gershwin. [12] Over the 16 years of his Queen Elizabeth Hall all-Gershwin concerts, Gibbons has given the world premieres of at least 48 reconstructed original Gershwin works. [10] He has also since 1994 given similar all-Gershwin concerts at New York's Merkin Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall. [13]
In 1992 Gibbons made his recording debut on the Hyperion label (with Constant Lambert's The Rio Grande ). The recording was nominated for a Gramophone Award and awarded a Penguin Guide 3-star rosette. [14] Between 1992 and 1997 Gibbons recorded a 4-CD set of recordings entitled "The Authentic George Gershwin", which won an MRA (Music Retailers Award). [13] Issued on the British label ASV, Gibbons' "Authentic George Gershwin" recordings were described by Classic CD as "a unique testimony to Gershwin's genius". [15]
In January 1995, in Oxford, Gibbons became the first pianist ever to perform all 12 of Alkan's Douze Etudes dans les Tons Mineurs, Op. 39 in a single concert (the concert was repeated the following year at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London). [16] The same month Gibbons recorded the work (its first digital recording) for the ASV label, Gramophone describing the recording as "among the most exhilarating feats of pianism I've heard on disc". [17] The same year, on 27 August 1995 Gibbons made his BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue , the BBC describing Gibbons as "THE Gershwin pianist of our time". [18] In 1997 Gibbons wrote and presented a feature programme for the BBC on George Gershwin in preparation for the centenary of the composer's birth, with actor Sir Ben Kingsley providing the voice of George Gershwin. [19]
In March 2001, Gibbons was involved in a life-threatening car accident. [20] Gibbons' accident and recovery were the subject of much media attention from newspapers, television and radio, with features in The Sunday Times , Gramophone, BBC etc. [11] Michael Church in the Daily Express described Gibbons' subsequent return to the concert platform as "miraculous" and "gutsy". [21] Following his serious car accident, Gibbons has given increasing attention to composing in place of his performing career. After childhood successes as a composer, Gibbons had abandoned his composing for 25 years in favour of performing. [22] Gibbons' own music has since been performed at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and recorded by the BBC. [23] [24] Gibbons' output to date (September 2017) includes over 40 songs and choral works (many for soprano voice, sung by sopranos Leona Mitchell, Christine Brewer, Mary Plazas, Ann Mackay, Suzanne Fleming-Atwood and others [25] ), 20 solo piano works, and two works for string orchestra.
Gibbons' performing career still continues alongside his composing. In March 2007 Gibbons gave the first performance at Carnegie Hall of Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the work's publication in Paris in 1857. [26] Gibbons continues to perform in Oxford, where he has been presenting and playing an annual summer piano festival every year without a break since 1988. [27] He was appointed artist-in-residence at Davis and Elkins College, in the U.S. state of West Virginia, in June 2010. [28] Gibbons became a naturalized American citizen on 29 November 2023. [29] [3]
List of compositions by Jack Gibbons by category
Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English writer of romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: "In the Bleak Midwinter", later set by Gustav Holst, Katherine Kennicott Davis, and Harold Darke, and "Love Came Down at Christmas", also set by Darke and other composers. She was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti and features in several of his paintings.
Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and virtuoso pianist. At the height of his fame in the 1830s and 1840s he was, alongside his friends and colleagues Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, among the leading pianists in Paris, a city in which he spent virtually his entire life.
Sea Pictures, Op. 37 is a song cycle by Sir Edward Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets. It was set for contralto and orchestra, though a distinct version for piano was often performed by Elgar. Many mezzo-sopranos have sung the piece.
Murray David Perahia is an American pianist and conductor. He is widely considered one of the greatest living pianists. He was the first North American pianist to win the Leeds International Piano Competition, in 1972. Known as a leading interpreter of Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, among other composers, Perahia has won numerous awards, including three Grammy Awards from a total of 18 nominations, and 9 Gramophone Awards in addition to its first and only "Piano Award".
John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.
Joyce Hilda Hatto was an English concert pianist and piano teacher. In 1956 she married William Barrington-Coupe, a record producer who was convicted of Purchase Tax evasion in 1966. Hatto became famous very late in life when unauthorised copies of commercial recordings made by other pianists were released under her name, earning her high praise from critics. The fraud did not come to light until 2007, more than six months after her death.
Nadine Dana Suesse was an American musician, composer and lyricist.
Nelly Akopian-Tamarina is a Russian pianist. She is of Armenian origin.
Jan Lisiecki is a Canadian-born classical pianist of Polish ancestry. Lisiecki performs over a hundred concerts annually and has worked closely with the world's leading orchestras and conductors, his career at the top of the international concert scene spanning over a decade. He has been a recording artist with Deutsche Grammophon since the age of fifteen.
Concerto for Solo Piano is a 3-movement solo piano piece written by Charles-Valentin Alkan. The pieces are part of a 12 piece cycle entitled Douze études dans tous les tons mineurs, published in 1857. With sections marked "Tutti", "Solo" and "Piano", the piece requires the soloist to present the voices of both the orchestra and the soloist. The pianist Jack Gibbons comments: "The style and form of the music take on a monumental quality—rich, thickly set textures and harmonies ... conjure up the sound world of a whole orchestra and tax the performer, both physically and mentally, to the limit."
Peter Jablonski is a Swedish concert pianist.
Dennis Hennig was an Australian pianist.
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Kenneth Alwyn Wetherell was a British conductor, composer, and writer. Described by BBC Radio 3 as "one of the great British musical directors", Alwyn was known for his many recordings, including with the London Symphony Orchestra on Decca's first stereophonic recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. He was also known for his long association with BBC Radio 2's orchestral live music programme Friday Night is Music Night, appearing for thirty years as a conductor and presenter, and for his contribution to British musical theatre as a prolific musical director in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and married the actress Mary Law in 1960. His website and the first volume of his memoirs A Baton in the Ballet and Other Places were both published in 2015. The second volume Is Anyone Watching? was published in 2017.
Danae Kara is a Greek classical concert pianist, recording artist, and educator, best known for her interpretations of 20th century Greek modernist composers.
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