Nicholas Ashton

Nicholas Ashton was educated at Chetham’s School, RNCM, in Geneva and in Frankfurt. His teachers were Renna Kellaway, Joachim Volkmann and Nikita Magaloff. Following a successful formal debut at the 1980 Manchester International Festival with the Saint-Saens second concerto he proceeded to perform widely throughout Europe during the 1980s.

After three years working in Germany he returned to the UK and resumed performing as a result of encouragement from Murray Perahia and Menahem Pressler. His first public recital in Scotland in 1995 was highly praised and resulted in regular offers to play. A live recording of a subsequent recital at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh was brought out on CD in 1996. Since then he has appeared every season at the venue and has performed to critical acclaim in concerts throughout the UK and at the Stock Exchange Hamburg and the Hamburg Chamber Music Society, Banff Center for the Arts, Canada and Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh.

Nicholas currently combines a busy teaching schedule as programme leader of the B. Mus degree course at the Ian Tomlin Music School, Napier University, with frequent appearances as soloist and as chamber musician with a group comprising friends from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, - Emphasis. He has contributed regularly as a performer and in interview on BBC Radio Scotland.

"A new name in the local performing pool is always intriguing, and when the artist is of the calibre of Nicholas Ashton, returning to a solo career at the encouragement of Murray Perahia, interest is not surprisingly heightened. This unpretentious and disarmingly modest pianist brought a refreshing gentility to his choice of unfamiliar classics. He is a highly sensitive artist - a delicate lucidity of texture coupled with a melancholy sensuousness opened to thrills and some heart-tugging passion." (Carol Main, The Scotsman)