Stephen Coombs is one of Britain's best known pianists and currently works with some of the world's foremost orchestras and conductors, as well as performing as a solo artist.

Earlier life

Coombs was born in Birkenhead

Birkenhead

Birkenhead is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite the city of Liverpool...

, Merseyside

Merseyside

Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...

 on July 11, 1960. He first became prominent in music at the age of thirteen, when he scooped second prize in the English National Piano Competition. Coombs first studied under Joan Slade privately, then Heather Slade-Lipkin

Heather Slade-Lipkin

-Life:Heather Slade-Lipkin was born into a musical family from Hoylake, Wirral, and by the age of six had already begun formal piano lessons with her mother Joan Slade, a disciple of Artur Schnabel, and then later studied with pianist Marie Gilcriest...

 at first privately and then at the Royal Northern College of Music

Royal Northern College of Music

The Royal Northern College of Music is a music school in Manchester, England. It is located on Oxford Road in Chorlton on Medlock, at the western edge of the campus of the University of Manchester and is one of four conservatories associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music...

 (under 19s section). Finally, he studied with Gordon Green

Gordon Green

Gordon Green was an Australian rules footballer who played in the Victorian Football League .Green made his debut for the Carlton Football Club in round 5 of the 1911 season. He last played in the 1921 Grand Final between Carlton and Richmond before retiring.-External links:* at...

 at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

.

Career

Coombs' career was later launched by winning the Gold medal at the Liszt International Concourse; a career that continued to develop throughout the 1980s, as Coombs appeared, both in Britain and abroad, with several major orchestras and, in 1989, began recording for Hyperion. In 1992, he began recording for the label's Romantic Piano Concerto series, after which he sporadically recorded further records, all for Hyperion. He has been Director of Music at The Conservatoire

The Conservatoire

The Conservatoire is an educational charity in Blackheath, on the border of the London boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham...

 in Blackheath, London. Coombs continues to performs all over the globe and continues to record extensively for the Hyperion Records

Hyperion Records

Hyperion Records is an independent British classical record label.-History:The company was named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology. It was founded by George Edward Perry, widely known as "Ted", in 1980. Early LP releases included rarely recorded 20th century British music by...

label, specialising in Russian music.