British pianist Ashley Fripp has
performed extensively as recitalist, concerto soloist and
chamber musician throughout Europe, Asia, North America,
Africa and Australia in many of the world's most
prestigious concert halls. Highlights include the Carnegie
Hall (New York), Musikverein (Vienna), Concertgebouw
(Amsterdam), the Philharmonie halls of Cologne, Paris,
Luxembourg and Warsaw, the Bozar (Brussels), the Royal
Festival, Barbican and Wigmore Halls (London), the Megaron
(Athens), and the Konserthuset (Stockholm).
He has won prizes at more than a dozen
national and international competitions, including at the
Hamamatsu (Japan), Birmingham, and Leeds International
Piano Competitions, the Royal Over-Seas League Competition,
the Concours Européen de Piano (France), and the coveted
Gold Medal from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
Ashley won the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ highest
award, The Prince's Prize, and was chosen as a 'Rising
Star' by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO). He
has performed in the Chipping Campden, Edinburgh, Brighton,
Bath, Buxton, City of London, and St. Magnus International
Festivals as well as the Oxford International Piano
Festival, the Festival Pontino di Musica (Italy), the
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele (Germany) and the Powsin
International Piano Festival (Poland). Ashley has also
given an open-air Chopin recital beside the world-famous
Chopin monument in Warsaw’s Royal Łazienki Park to an
audience of 2,500 people.
A frequent guest on broadcasting
networks, Ashley has appeared on BBC television and radio,
Euroclassical, Eurovision TV and the national radio
stations of Hungary, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
Poland, Belgium and Portugal. Commercial recordings include
Chopin Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 with the Kammerorchester
der Universität Regensburg (Spektral Records, 2013), an
album of solo repertoire by J. S. Bach, Thomas Adès and
Chopin (Willowhayne Records, 2018), and ‘The Saxophone
Craze: Homage to Rudy Wiedoeft’ with saxophonist
Jonathan Radford (Champs Hill Records, 2022).
Ashley Fripp studied with Eliso
Virsaladze at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole (Italy) and
at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with Ronan O’Hora.
In 2021, he was awarded a doctorate for his research into
the music of British composer Thomas Adès.
Thomas
Adès, composer, pianist and conductor
“Ashley Fripp is a
genuine virtuoso, an astoundingly brilliant and masterly
pianist, and his total grasp of the music is a joy to hear”
New York Times
“Disarmingly
precocious”
The Guardian
“…played with
virtuosity, nobility and the right dash of glamour”
The Observer
“In this recital,
Fripp includes the first recording since the composer’s own
of
Concert
Paraphrase on Powder Her Face,
Adès’s explosive precis of his 1995 opera. Fripp captures
all its insouciance, darkness and extravagance.”
Sunday
Times
“Crisply performed…
the virtuoso figuration is searching as well as
irresistibly zestful”
BBC Music Magazine
“The young pianist’s
Bach sparkles with finely-wrought phrasing and articulation
while the Adès paraphrase in an exciting revelation. His
Chopin breathes and dances”
Gramophone Magazine
“Thomas Adès’s
madcap concert paraphrase based on his controversial first
opera
Powder
Her Face inspires
Fripp no end. He plays up the second section’s sudden mood
swings with vivid character and a wide palette of
articulations. What is more, Fripp easily dispatches
anything that Adès throws at him”
The
Arts Desk
“Ashley Fripp’s
eclectic recital disc starts as it goes on… a winning blend
of muscularity and elegance… incredibly persuasive”
Musical Opinion
“...This was an
amazing reading, gripping, sensuous and full of colour and
flavour. Listen out for Fripp in the future; I certainly
will”
Birmingham
Post
“Ashley Fripp is a
pianist of formidable intelligence. Add to that a fearless,
loose-limbed technique and a prodigious memory...and you
have a young talent which needs to be taken very seriously
indeed”
Rheinische
Post
"Sometimes
breathtakingly fast, sometimes as slowly as a narrator
telling his story in the moment, sometimes folksy and
temperamental, sometimes lyrical, yet always with
picturesque phrasing, he brought the pieces to life with
exquisite class."
Mittelbayerische
Zeitung
“A master of
restraint... he allowed Chopin's arabesques to effervesce
weightlessly”
|
|