He made his concerto debut in 1996, at the age of fifteen, as soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall broadcast live on Classic FM, and has since performed many concertos with a variety of orchestras, including tours of Hungary and the Czech Republic (Rudolfinum).

He regularly broadcasts for BBC television, BBC Radio 3 and World Service, Classic FM and New Zealand Concert FM. Recent performances have included the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Cadogan Hall, Bridgewater Hall and Philharmonic Hall, as well recitals for British music societies and international festivals. Most recently he performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in New York with the National Symphony Orchestra under Anthony Inglis as well as a performance at the 2010 Gramophone Awards. Future performances include many appearances at Wigmore Hall as well as recitals abroad including the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.

Committed to song-accompaniment, Alisdair formed a group of young professional singers, The Prince Consort, which focuses on piano-accompanied song. Following their highly-acclaimed recital debut at the Purcell Room as part of the ‘Fresh’ Young Artists Series they perform frequently at music societies and festivals throughout Europe and the USA. They made their Wigmore Hall debut in 2009 where they were joined by Graham Johnson for the Brahms Liebeslieder Walzer. Their first commercial CD, a recording of songs by Ned Rorem released on Linn Records, was Gramophone Editor’s Choice and won an Outstanding award from International Record Review.  They also have a close relationship with the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh where they held a residency to prepare for the recording and performed a recital in the prestigious Britten Weekend. Alisdair has performed with Sir Thomas Allen, Rosemary Joshua, Lillian Watson, Donald Maxwell and is the regular accompanist to many of his generation’s finest young singers, including Anna Leese, Jennifer Johnston, Andrew Staples, Jacques Imbrailo and Tim Mead. He has just returned from Korea where he gave two recitals with Barbara Bonney. Current projects include a recording on Linn Records with Philip Fowke and Stephen Hough, performing Brahms Liebeslieder and a new song cycle written by Stephen Hough specifically for The Prince Consort. This CD was selected as Classic FM Editor’s Choice in October 2011. Current work includes projects with Jason Rebello, Gwilym Simcock, Cheryl Frances Hoad and a new recording of Jake Heggie songs on Linn.

Alisdair studied privately with Philip Fowke and subsequently with Peter Katin, and also at the Royal College of Music with John Blakely and Roger Vignoles where he won all the major prizes for piano accompaniment. In the same year he was selected as a Park Lane Group Young Artist. He was an RCM scholar supported by the Fishmongers’ Company Music Scholarship, Michael Whittaker and Robert McFadzean Whyte Awards and is an alumnus of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme. Alisdair acknowledges the kind and generous support of Simon Yates, and Philip and Chris Carne.

This biography is for information only. Please contact Rayfield Allied for concert use.

You can view Al's blog for Linn here.

15 May 2013

FORGET AND FORGIVE

A few months ago I read a fantastic piece by Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times discussing whether musicians should perform from memory or not. This is a perennially thorny issue but it was refreshing to see this article take the stance that memorisation should not be a requirement of a good performance...more

7 December 2012

ONE TAKE WONDER

For part two of my blog mini-series on recording I thought I’d go behind the scenes and offer you some helpful hints and tips based on what I’ve learned from the recordings I’ve done so far - both with Linn and the BBC...more

20 November 2012

JUST FOR THE RECORD

During recent weeks I’ve been planning the next Prince Consort album for Linn and I’ve noticed a lot of musical parallels in differences between film and studio recording and theatre and live performance. So for my next few blog posts, I’ve decided to open the door on what goes on at a professional recording, besides eating biscuits and swearing...more

31 August 2012

THE INNER GAME OF MUSIC

As a musician you can be performing in the most nerve-racking of situations, such as an all-Schubert recital at a capacity Wigmore Hall, and not really feel nervous at all; yet you can give a three minute performance for a small local event in the presence of three people, two Yorkshire Terriers and next door’s cat, and get inexplicably nervous.

But how do top performers deal with these inner demons?...more

12 July 2012

THE KEYS TO COMPOSITION - INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN HOUGH

Last year I was lucky enough to work with British pianist, composer and polymath Stephen Hough in a project with the Prince Consort, in which he featured both as composer and performer. Back in 2010 I was interested in doing some more performances of the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes (for collective voices and piano duet) and was wanting to work with a range of different pianists from different backgrounds...more

18 April 2012

TAKE ME TO YOUR LIEDER

I've worked with my vocal group, The Prince Consort, for over a decade and I've learned a few things about the secret world of the piano accompanist.

Not because we feel unloved or anything, but because much of what an accompanist does in a performance is not immediately obvious to the naked ear...more

22 February 2012

IMITATION AND INNOVATION

I’ve been having some jazz piano lessons recently in preparation for a project I’m working on in 2013 with The Prince Consort and British jazz pianist Jason Rebello…

When I had my first session, I was quite obsessed with which notes I should play on which chords and how I could create melodic figures out of nowhere. But one of the main things that Jason talked about was jazz ‘feel’, and he said that this is often the crucial element missing... more