John Richard Lill CBE (born 17 March 1944 in London) is a British classical pianist.
Lill studied at the Royal College of Music with Angus Morrison, and with Wilhelm Kempff. His talent emerged at an early age, he gave his first piano recital at the age of nine and by the age of 14 had all of the Piano Sonatas of Beethoven committed to memory. At age 18, he performed Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto under Sir Adrian Boult followed then by a much-acclaimed 1963 London debut playing Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 at the Royal Festival Hall. In 1970 he won the Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition (ex-aequo with Vladimir Krainev). It was said by Sidney Harrison that "he (John Lill) simply devours Beethoven. I set him work for the week – he does that and more." [1]
Lill has made a number of recordings, including the complete piano concertos of Beethoven, Brahms and Rachmaninoff and the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven and Prokofiev.
Lill has performed in over fifty countries, both as a recitalist and as a concerto soloist. He has worked in the major European concert cities, including Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Prague, Rome, Stockholm and Vienna, as well as in Russia, the Far East and Australasia (including several Australian Broadcasting Corporation tours). He has also performed in the United States with the Symphony Orchestras of Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, Seattle, Baltimore, Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Diego.
His repertoire includes more than seventy concertos, and he is acclaimed in particular as a leading interpreter of Beethoven, whose complete sonata cycle he has performed on several occasions in the UK, US and Japan. In Britain, he has given over 30 BBC Promenade concerts and regularly appears with all the major symphony orchestras. He has toured overseas with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, CBSO, Hallé, Royal Scottish National and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestras.
Lill has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI (Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos with RSNO and Alexander Gibson), ASV (both Brahms Concertos with the Hallé and James Loughran), Tchaikovsky l with the LSO and James Judd, plus the complete Beethoven Sonatas. More recently, he has recorded the complete Prokofiev sonatas with ASV and his recording of the complete Beethoven Bagatelles and Piano Concertos with the CBSO and Walter Weller is available on Chandos. He recorded Malcolm Arnold's Fantasy on a Theme of John Field (dedicated to John Lill) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Vernon Handley for Conifer. He has also recorded the complete Rachmaninoff concertos and major solo piano works for Nimbus Records. His most recent recording projects have been the 60th birthday release of piano works by Schumann on the Classics for Pleasure label and new releases for Signum records of Schumann, Brahms and Haydn.
In 2000, Lill suffered injuries to both his hands when muggers slashed his hands in the course of a robbery attempt. [2] [3] [4] He recovered quickly and resumed his career.
John Lill lives in London. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1978 [5] and appointed a CBE for his services to music in the 2005 New Year's Honours List.
Isaac Stern was an American violinist.
Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian solo pianist, chamber music performer, and conductor. Born in the Soviet Union, he has held Icelandic citizenship since 1972 and has been a resident of Switzerland since 1978. Ashkenazy has collaborated with well-known orchestras and soloists. In addition, he has recorded a large repertoire of classical and romantic works. His recordings have earned him seven Grammy Awards and Iceland's Order of the Falcon.
Benno Moiseiwitsch was a Russian and British pianist.
Emil Grigoryevich Gilels was a Soviet pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time.
Shura Cherkassky was a Russian-American concert pianist known for his performances of the romantic repertoire. His playing was characterized by a virtuoso technique and singing piano tone. For much of his later life, Cherkassky resided in London.
Ruth Laredo was an American classical pianist.
Alexis Sigismund Weissenberg was a Bulgarian-born French pianist.
Andrei Gavrilov is a Russian-Swiss pianist.
Yeol Eum Son is a world renowned South Korean classical pianist. She is particularly esteemed as an interpreter of the Classical era of composers, especially Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, as well as such later composers as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Ravel. Son regularly performs as soloist with prominent orchestras and eminent conductors.
Peter Donohoe CBE is an English classical pianist.
Horacio Gutiérrez is a Cuban-American classical pianist known for his performances of works in the Romantic Repertoire.
This is the discography of Simon Rattle and other produced works by the English conductor.
James Zuill Bailey, better known as Zuill Bailey is an American Grammy Award-winning cello soloist, chamber musician, and artistic director. A graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the Juilliard School, he has appeared in recital and with major orchestras internationally. He is a professor of cello and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at El Paso. Bailey’s extensive recording catalogue are released on TELARC, Avie, Steinway and Sons, Octave, Delos, Albany, Sono Luminus, Naxos, Azica, Concord, EuroArts, ASV, Oxingale and Zenph Studios.
Ronald Turini is a world renowned Canadian classical pianist. He is the first Canadian artist to win prizes at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition and the Geneva International Music Competition, both in 1958, and the 1960 Queen Elisabeth Competition, where he was acclaimed by juror Emil Gilels. He was an acknowledged student of Vladimir Horowitz, and was known to be Horowitz' personally most highly regarded student.
Peter Roy Katin was a British classical pianist and teacher.
Daniel Pollack is an American pianist.
Kun-woo Paik is a South Korean pianist. He has performed with multiple orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic.
Carol Rosenberger is a classical pianist. In 1976, Rosenberger was chosen to represent America's women concert artists by the President's National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. She has given performance workshops for young musicians on campuses nationwide. Rosenberger recorded over 30 albums on the Delos Productions, Inc. recording label. Rosenberger's memoir, To Play Again: A Memoir of Musical Survival was published in 2018 by She Writes Press.
Richard Farrell was a New Zealand classical pianist.
Eugen Indjic was a Yugoslav-born French-American pianist.