Described by Gramophone magazine as possessing ‘the enviable gift to turn almost anything he plays into pure gold’, Ashley Wass is a former BBC New Generation Artist and the only British pianist to have won first prize at the London International Piano Competition. He has given recitals at most of Britain’s major venues and made his BBC Prom début performing Vaughan Williams’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic in August 2008. In the 2009 BBC Proms Ashley performed in three concerts and gave the world première of a BBC commission for solo piano by John McCabe. At the 2010 BBC Proms he performed John Foulds’s Piano Concerto ‘Dynamic Triptych’ with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

As Naxos’s first-ever exclusively contracted solo artist, he made his début recording in 1999 with an acclaimed solo recital disc of works by César Franck for Naxos (8.554484). Concerto performances have brought collaborations with leading orchestras and conductors and as a chamber musician he has toured the United States and Europe with the violinist Sarah Chang. His recordings include Vaughan Williams’s Piano Concerto and his surveys of piano music by Bridge and Bax have won high praise. Ashley Wass is artistic director of the Lincolnshire International Chamber Music Festival and teaches at the Royal College of Music in London.

A Balancing Act – Ashley Wass Talks to Jeremy Siepman