John Lenehan

Britain's John Lenehan, born in 1958 and raised in central London, has issued more than seventy albums that traverse an immense range of genres and styles, placing him among the most adaptable pianists active in classical music. His work has moved past strictly classical boundaries into jazz and has expanded from performance to include composition and arranging. Early musical contact occurred at school through the recorder, yet at eight he turned to the piano; during his teens he added violin and subsequently viola, gaining free instruction through the Centre for Young Musicians of the Inner London Educational Authority, "which no longer exists," he notes. He studied at St. Joseph's Academy before entering the Royal Academy of Music, where piano and viola formed his curriculum until chamber-music parts for piano claimed greater attention. Solo appearances have taken him to the Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra and to the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic.

Diversity defines his recorded output, which encompasses mainstream chamber works by Brahms and others, the complete piano music of John Ireland for Naxos, solo and duo sonatas by Mozart and additional composers, concertos by Michael Nyman, and, in a more pronounced crossover vein, minimalist piano pieces by Ludovico Einaudi and further composers issued on Sony Classical. An admirer of Erik Satie, Lenehan has recorded that composer's music for Classic FM's own label. Violinist Tasmin Little ranks among his regular chamber-music partners. He remains an eager exponent of early jazz, ragtime, and slide piano. As a composer he created a Fantasy on Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker that the Budapest Symphony Orchestra has recorded, while his arrangements have appeared on albums by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, pianist Yuja Wang, and violinists Leonidas Kavakos, Nicola Benedetti, and Nigel Kennedy.