CHICCHI

Richard Fairhurst - Pianist & Composer

www.richardfairhurst.com

Born in 1975, Richard started playing the piano at the age of 14, having been inspired by hearing Oscar Peterson on the radio. Helped by some dedicated tutors who identified a natural talent, Richard made rapid progress both in terms of performance and composition skills. National music awards followed and he was granted a scholarship to study improvisation at the renowned New School University in Manhattan, New York.

Assisted by the fantastic British saxophonist/composer Iain Ballamy (an early and hugely influential mentor), Richard formed a band, ‘The Hungry Ants’, and his first album was released on the Babel Label when he was just 19. It reached number 4 in the Virgin national jazz chart and Richard won the Pat Smythe Award for young musicians of Outstanding Talent. Richard was soon playing gigs in London at the 606 Club and the Vortex, and at the age of 20 had his first week’s residency at Ronnie Scott’s with Iain Ballamy. He released two further albums with the Hungry Ants - ‘Formic’ and ‘Myrmidons’ which were also well received, both getting 4 star reviews in The Guardian.

Since this early success, he has gone on to perform all over the UK and at Jazz festivals worldwide including Jerusalem, Copenhagen, Cologne, Vienna, Glasgow, Cheltenham, Bath and Senegal.

He has made numerous appearances on BBC radio programmes such as Jazz on 3, In Tune, Jazz Line-Up and Loose Ends and he was selected as one of two artists representing the future of British jazz for a BBC documentary by John Fordham. The Times have also featured him in their arts column “Great British Hopes”.

He has been a Steinway International Artist since 1998 and in 2000 he was a finalist at the Montreux Jazz Festival’s solo piano competition. In 2004 Richard was commissioned as part of the Jerwood ‘Rising Stars’ programme to write music for a premier performance at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. He formed a new sextet and the music was released on the album ‘Standing Tall’ (Babel). This music won Richard a BBC Jazz Award in the Best New Work category for 2004.

Richard released his fifth album for the Babel Label ‘Mesmer’ in 2007, a series of original duets, with flugelhorn player Tom Arthurs. The duo has gone from strength to strength, recently performing a new BBC commission in the City Of London Festival and performing at the BBC Proms in 2009. Now 35, Richard continues to write and perform. He also spends considerable time passing his skills on to students, and has recently been teaching his compositions on the Jazz course at the Royal Academy of Music.

Richard recently performed a duo concert with piano legend John Taylor during the Steinway Piano Festival at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in London. The concert received rave reviews and was a huge success. His current project ‘Triptych’ involves a piano trio with the superb Danish bassist Jasper Hoiby and amazing American  drummer Chris Vatalaro. Their new album ‘Amusia’ was released in 2010.

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‘One of the UK’s most inventive pianists’ – The Guardian