Jack Gibbons
Encyclopedia
Jack Gibbons is an English
classical pianist
and composer
.
, later continuing in Oxford
. He began performing in public at the age of 10. He made his London
debut in 1979, at the age of 17, with an all-Alkan
concert that included Alkan's Concerto for solo piano and Ouverture from Op. 39. At the age of 20 he won First Prize in the Newport International Pianoforte Competition, with a performance with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra of Beethoven
's Piano Concerto No. 4
. In 1984 he made his Queen Elizabeth Hall
debut performing J.S. Bach
's Goldberg Variations
, Chopin
's "Funeral March" Sonata and Ravel
's Gaspard de la nuit
, after which recital The Times
wrote that Gibbons "could be Britain's answer to Ivo Pogorelić
". Since then Gibbons has played in many prestigious venues and festivals all over the world, as recitalist and concerto soloist.
For 16 years, from 1990 to 2005, Gibbons gave annual all-Gershwin
concerts at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, with a gap in 2001 following a near-fatal car accident. These concerts feature Gibbons' own note-for-note reconstructions and transcriptions of the original recorded improvisations and concert works of George Gershwin. Over the 16 years of his Queen Elizabeth Hall all-Gershwin concerts, Gibbons has given the world premieres of at least 48 reconstructed original Gershwin works. He has also since 1994 given similar all-Gershwin concerts at New York
's Merkin Hall
, Alice Tully Hall
and Carnegie Hall
.
In 1992 Gibbons made his recording debut on the Hyperion label (with Constant Lambert
's The Rio Grande
). The recording was nominated for a Gramophone Award and awarded a Penguin Guide 3-star rosette. Between 1992 and 1997 Gibbons recorded a 4 CD set of recordings entitled "The Authentic George Gershwin", which won an MRA (Music Retailers Award). Issued on the British label ASV Gibbons' "Authentic George Gershwin" recordings were described by Classic CD as "a unique testimony to Gershwin's genius".
In January 1995, in Oxford
, Gibbons became the first pianist ever to perform all 12 of Alkan's Douze Etudes dans les Tons Mineurs, Op. 39 in a single concert (the concert was repeated the following year at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London). The same month Gibbons recorded the work (its first digital recording) for the ASV label, Gramophone describing the recording as "among the most exhilarating feats of pianism I’ve heard on disc". The same year, on August 27, 1995 Gibbons made his debut at the BBC Prom concerts
at the Royal Albert Hall with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
, the BBC
describing Gibbons as "THE Gershwin pianist of our time". In 1997 Gibbons wrote and presented a feature program for the BBC on George Gershwin in preparation for the centenary of the composer's birth, with actor Sir Ben Kingsley
providing the voice of George Gershwin.
In March 2001, Gibbons was involved in a life-threatening car accident. Gibbons' accident and recovery were the subject of much media attention from newspapers, television and radio, with features in the Sunday Times, Gramophone, BBC etc. Michael Church in the Daily Express described Gibbons’ subsequent return to the concert platform as “miraculous” and “gutsy”. Following his serious car accident, Gibbons has given increasing attention to composing in place of his performing career. After childhood successes as a composer, Gibbons had abandoned his composing for 25 years in favor of performing. Gibbons' own music has since been performed at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and recorded by the BBC. Gibbons' output to date (October 2010) includes over 40 songs and choral works (mostly for soprano voice), 20 solo piano works, and two works for string orchestra.
Gibbons' performing career still continues alongside his composing. In March 2007 Gibbons gave the first performance at Carnegie Hall of Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the work's publication in Paris in 1857. Gibbons continues to perform in Oxford, where he has been presenting and playing an annual summer piano festival every year without a break since 1988.
On June 21, 2010 Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia, USA, announced that Jack Gibbons would become the college's Artist in Residence, beginning August 2010.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
classical pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Biography
Gibbons was born in England. His father is a scientist and his mother a visual artist. He began his piano studies in Stockton-on-TeesStockton-on-Tees
Stockton-on-Tees is a market town in north east England. It is the major settlement in the unitary authority and borough of Stockton-on-Tees. For ceremonial purposes, the borough is split between County Durham and North Yorkshire as it also incorporates a number of smaller towns including...
, later continuing in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
. He began performing in public at the age of 10. He made his London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
debut in 1979, at the age of 17, with an all-Alkan
Charles-Valentin Alkan
Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso...
concert that included Alkan's Concerto for solo piano and Ouverture from Op. 39. At the age of 20 he won First Prize in the Newport International Pianoforte Competition, with a performance with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra of Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Piano Concerto No. 4
Piano Concerto No. 4 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, was composed in 1805–1806, although no autograph copy survives.-Musical forces and movements:...
. In 1984 he made his Queen Elizabeth Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...
debut performing J.S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
's Goldberg Variations
Goldberg Variations
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...
, Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
's "Funeral March" Sonata and Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's Gaspard de la nuit
Gaspard de la nuit
Gaspard de la nuit: Trois poèmes pour piano d'après Aloysius Bertrand is a piece for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, written in 1908. It has three movements, each based on a poem by Aloysius Bertrand...
, after which recital The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote that Gibbons "could be Britain's answer to Ivo Pogorelić
Ivo Pogorelic
Ivo Pogorelić is a Croatian pianist.-Early life:He was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, now Serbia, to a Croatian father and a Serbian mother...
". Since then Gibbons has played in many prestigious venues and festivals all over the world, as recitalist and concerto soloist.
For 16 years, from 1990 to 2005, Gibbons gave annual all-Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
concerts at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, with a gap in 2001 following a near-fatal car accident. These concerts feature Gibbons' own note-for-note reconstructions and transcriptions of the original recorded improvisations and concert works of George Gershwin. Over the 16 years of his Queen Elizabeth Hall all-Gershwin concerts, Gibbons has given the world premieres of at least 48 reconstructed original Gershwin works. He has also since 1994 given similar all-Gershwin concerts at New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
's Merkin Hall
Merkin Concert Hall
Merkin Concert Hall is a 449-seat concert hall in Manhattan, New York City. The hall, named in honor of Hermann and Ursula Merkin, is part of the Kaufman Center, a complex that includes the Lucy Moses School, a community arts school, and the Special Music School , a New York City public school for...
, Alice Tully Hall
Alice Tully Hall
Alice Tully Hall is a concert hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. It is named for Alice Tully, a New York performer and philanthropist whose donations assisted in the construction of the hall...
and Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
.
In 1992 Gibbons made his recording debut on the Hyperion label (with Constant Lambert
Constant Lambert
Leonard Constant Lambert was a British composer and conductor.-Early life:Lambert, the son of Russian-born Australian painter George Lambert, was educated at Christ's Hospital and the Royal College of Music...
's The Rio Grande
The Rio Grande (Lambert)
The Rio Grande is a work by Constant Lambert, for alto, choir, piano, brass, strings and a percussion section of 15 instruments, needing five players. It was written in 1927, and achieved instant and long-lasting popularity on its appearance on the concert stage in 1929...
). The recording was nominated for a Gramophone Award and awarded a Penguin Guide 3-star rosette. Between 1992 and 1997 Gibbons recorded a 4 CD set of recordings entitled "The Authentic George Gershwin", which won an MRA (Music Retailers Award). Issued on the British label ASV Gibbons' "Authentic George Gershwin" recordings were described by Classic CD as "a unique testimony to Gershwin's genius".
In January 1995, in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, Gibbons became the first pianist ever to perform all 12 of Alkan's Douze Etudes dans les Tons Mineurs, Op. 39 in a single concert (the concert was repeated the following year at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London). The same month Gibbons recorded the work (its first digital recording) for the ASV label, Gramophone describing the recording as "among the most exhilarating feats of pianism I’ve heard on disc". The same year, on August 27, 1995 Gibbons made his debut at the BBC Prom concerts
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
at the Royal Albert Hall with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....
, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
describing Gibbons as "THE Gershwin pianist of our time". In 1997 Gibbons wrote and presented a feature program for the BBC on George Gershwin in preparation for the centenary of the composer's birth, with actor Sir Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
providing the voice of George Gershwin.
In March 2001, Gibbons was involved in a life-threatening car accident. Gibbons' accident and recovery were the subject of much media attention from newspapers, television and radio, with features in the Sunday Times, Gramophone, BBC etc. Michael Church in the Daily Express described Gibbons’ subsequent return to the concert platform as “miraculous” and “gutsy”. Following his serious car accident, Gibbons has given increasing attention to composing in place of his performing career. After childhood successes as a composer, Gibbons had abandoned his composing for 25 years in favor of performing. Gibbons' own music has since been performed at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and recorded by the BBC. Gibbons' output to date (October 2010) includes over 40 songs and choral works (mostly for soprano voice), 20 solo piano works, and two works for string orchestra.
Gibbons' performing career still continues alongside his composing. In March 2007 Gibbons gave the first performance at Carnegie Hall of Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the work's publication in Paris in 1857. Gibbons continues to perform in Oxford, where he has been presenting and playing an annual summer piano festival every year without a break since 1988.
On June 21, 2010 Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia, USA, announced that Jack Gibbons would become the college's Artist in Residence, beginning August 2010.
Songs
- Sonnet: Remember me (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 12
- Phantom of Delight (words by William Wordsworth, Op. 13
- When We Two Parted (words by Lord Byron), Op. 14
- I'll Not Weep (words by Emily Brontë), Op. 15
- Beloved Again (words by Emily Brontë), Op. 16
- Music, when soft voices die (words by Percy Bysshe Shelley), Op. 17
- Echo (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 18
- Sleep Not (words by Emily Brontë), Op. 19
- Why? (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 20
- Epitaph for a child (words by Robert Herrick), Op. 21
- The Garden of Love (words by William Blake), Op. 22
- In The Lane (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 23
- Weep you no more (words by John Dowland), Op. 24
- The Linnet (words by Walter de la Mare), Op. 25
- Roses for the flush of youth (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 26
- The Bourne (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 27
- Among the flowers (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 28
- Love me, I Love You (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 29
- If I Could Shut the Gate (words anon), Op. 31
- Oh What Comes Over the Sea (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 32
- Mariana (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 33
- Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee (words by Emily Brontë), Op. 34
- When I am Dead My Dearest (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 36
- Echo’s Song (words by Ben Jonson), Op. 40
- Once (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 43
- Perhaps (to R.A.L.) (words by Vera Brittain), Op. 47
- A Life Beyond (words by Jack Gibbons), Op. 52
- The Sun Is Set (words by Jack Gibbons), Op. 57
- Sapessi pure! (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 58
- Sing A Song Of Spring (words by Jack Gibbons), Op. 60
- May (words by Christina Rossetti), Op. 61
- A Red, Red Rose (words by Robert Burns), Op. 62
- I Love My Jean (words by Robert Burns), Op. 63
- Cradle Song (words by John Philip), Op. 64
- A Love Alive (words by Jack Gibbons), Op. 65
- Life (words by Charlotte Brontë), Op. 67
- The Parting Day (words by Edith Wharton), Op. 68
- The One Grief (words by Edith Wharton), Op. 69
- How Sweet I Roam'd from Field to Field (words by William Blake), Op. 72
- Longing (words by Matthew Arnold), Op. 73
- The Aspen (words by A.E. Houseman), Op. 74
- Roses (words by Edna St. Vincent Millay), Op. 75
- Lullaby of an Infant Chief (words by Sir Walter Scott), Op. 76
Solo Piano
- Siciliano, Op. 30
- Prelude in A flat, Op. 37
- Tarantella, Op. 38
- Waltz in E major, Op. 39
- Prière, Op. 44
- Song Without Words, Op. 45
- Contredanse, Op. 46
- Song from the Old World, Op. 48
- Waltz in G major, Op. 49
- Music Box, Op. 50
- Lullaby (in memoriam), Op. 51
- Waltz in F minor, Op. 53
- Sarabande, Op. 54
- Waltz in E flat minor, Op. 55
- Prelude in E major, Op. 56
- Shanty, Op. 59
- A New World Song, Op. 66
- Waltz for a musical box, Op. 77
- Waltz in F major, Op. 78
- Nocturne in F sharp, Op. 79
- Melody in F sharp, Op. 80
- Minuetto malinconico, Op. 81
- 7 Esquisses, Op. 82
- Andantino, Op. 83
- Preludio, Op. 84
- Menuetto antico, Op. 85
- Nocturne in D flat, Op. 86
- Menuetto semplice, Op. 87
- Consolation, Op. 88