Tim Horton • A Piano Journey

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We are delighted to welcome international recitalist, collaborative performer and recording artist TIM HORTON as the special guest artist at the Milton Keynes Piano Celebration 2026, where he will be performing music by Beethoven and Chopin:

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In this special interview I talk to Tim about his piano journey, from earliest lessons to international recognition. And while reading, you may also want to watch this inspiring recent recital he gave in Oxford:

Andrew: Thanks for talking to Pianodao today!

It’s always interesting to find out how brilliant musicians first discover their love of playing the piano. Do you remember much about your first encounters with music, early piano lessons… what was it that especially hooked you into loving the piano?

Tim: My first encounters with music were at a very early age. There was always music in the house and my brother, who is four years older than me, was learning the piano when I was about four or five. I remember being thoroughly bored by recorder lessons at school and began to beg my parents from about the age of five. At six they relented.

I remember my first piano lesson. I was given a little piece in a book by J. W. Schaum to learn for the following week. I went to that lesson having learned the whole book! You could say that I was hooked.

I remember certain LPs being significant at that stage: a 45 of Alfred Brendel playing Mozart’s last Concerto K 595, a Chopin recital with Tamás Vásáry and a Colin Davies recording of Mozart’s last two Symphonies. The soundtrack of the music to the Disney Jungle Book was also something I loved listening to.

At the age of seven my parents bought me the Maurizio Pollini 1972 recording of the Chopin Etudes. I couldn’t believe that the piano could be played like that or that someone could conceive of writing for the instrument in that way.

Andrew: I’m guessing your first teacher soon picked up on your enthusiasm and ability, and wonder what your piano education looked like through your childhood. Can you tell us how your focus was channelled through those years?

Tim: My first teacher got a bit overexcited and started me on Chopin op. 10 no. 1 after a few weeks! It was partly an attempt to get flexibility and stretch into my right hand as well as assessing my ability to learn. It’s possible it was premature! There were also Clementi Sonatinas, amongst other repertoire. I had a temporary stint with another teacher before auditioning for Chetham’s when I was nine. I was accepted.

I was very grateful to the public library system in those days. Having been so impressed by the Pollini Chopin Etudes LP I found all of his other records at the Birkenhead library. This included late Beethoven Sonatas, Brahms Concertos, the complete works of Schoenberg and his legendary recording of Boulez’s Second Sonata. These pieces became the epitome of the piano from the age of seven or eight.

Andrew: What do you think it was in Pollini’s playing that especially gripped your imagination at that age?

Tim: At that age, the sheer pianistic mastery was an incredible inspiration.

Pollini is a divisive figure. Some people believe that his razor-sharp approach to music offers an almost objective reading of the repertoire: the composer’s intentions revealed without the intervention of a performer’s ego. Other people find his playing cold and uninvolving. I sit somewhere between these two opinions.

His playing in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s was razor-sharp and at its best, in certain repertoire, as convincing and crucial as any other pianist’s output. I find his performances and recordings from later years to be less persuasive, with some exceptions. As a child there was nobody whose playing I found as exciting.

Andrew: Tell us about your time at Chetham’s…

Tim: I arrived at Chetham’s at the age of nine and stayed until eighteen. When I started there my technique was severely lacking. Posture, and hand, and arm position were very bad.

My first teacher at the school, a man called Nigel Pitceathly, remodelled my technique over the first couple of years. There was plenty of Hanon, scales, Bach and technical exercises. I am very grateful to him for that. I had plenty of opportunities to perform in those years, including a few Concertos with the school orchestra.

In later years I don’t think there was sufficient discipline in my approach to practice, something that plagued me throughout my twenties and early thirties. I wanted to play a lot of repertoire that might have been too much of a stretch without the necessary technical polish. I am pleased now though. Pieces you learn at that age stay in the fingers forever.

There are many aspects of Chetham’s during that time which are well known, and this is not a place to discuss them. Suffice to say that my experience at the school has been tarnished considerably by them, as well ruining many lives and potential careers.

Andrew: Looking back, what do you feel were the best aspects of the music education you received? And if you could change or improve one aspect what would it be?

Tim: The breadth of music to which I was exposed was wonderful. The academic music teaching at Chetham’s was one of the best things about the place, as was the library which was stocked with an impressive catalogue of LPs and CDs as well as orchestral scores. I got to know late Beethoven Quartets, Mahler Symphonies and most of the output of the Second Viennese School amongst many other things. And then, at Cambridge I learned the analytical techniques that inform my approach to this day.

My main qualm is the approach to piano teaching. To train all students with the aim of creating soloists seems rather unrealistic and potentially harmful. Much more emphasis should have been placed on the importance of chamber music. My ability to play solo repertoire today is a direct result of my experiences of collaborations with other musicians. My imagination is far richer and is constantly being fed by my exposure to other people’s ideas. Without this I think I would not be able to play at Wigmore Hall on my own, for example.

Andrew: You also took part in the BBC Young Musician of the Year around that time. Would you like to share about that, the part it played in moving towards a career? And I wonder what your views are on the explosion of piano competitions in our time. Do you think they are beneficial for serious classical pianists?

Tim: I have very mixed feelings about my experiences in competitions. On the one hand it exposed me to a type of pressure that one could describe as character building. Unfortunately, the downside is the feeling of rejection when one doesn’t do too well.

The idea that music can be competitive is an awful approach to what we do. Music is about the deepest of human experience and emotions. Different musicians will have their own interpretations that will give an audience different insights. The idea that one can compare these for the sake of a gold medal is quite offensive to the art form.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many better ways into the profession than competitions for a lot of people, and they can reveal outstanding musicians, of course. But the negative effects on the “losers” can be considerable. There must be a better way.

Andrew: Can you tell us about your own transition from student to professional pianist?

Tim: At Cambridge, I decided that a more varied musical education was necessary. But in my third year I received a call to replace Alfred Brendel in two performances of Schoenberg’s Concerto with CBSO and Simon Rattle at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, and the Royal Festival Hall in London.

I had played the piece to Brendel when I was seventeen before a concert at school, and he remembered me. It was an incredible experience that led to some concerts, and thirty years of study with Brendel, on and off. It wasn’t a meteoric rise though.

I had various crises of confidence in my twenties and early thirties that did my career no good. In 2005 I was appointed pianist with Ensemble 360, and that’s where things got back on track really. A lot of concerts, and immersion in so many musicians’ ideas slowly unleashed my own imagination.

It is no exaggeration to say that I would not be able to play solo repertoire without my long devotion to chamber music. I owe my colleagues a lot!

Andrew: What have been the highlights – and if you like, the low points – of your career as a pianist?

Tim: The concerts with Simon Rattle were an extraordinary privilege. When you are that close to a great conductor you realise what their true purpose is. I learned a huge amount. I always thought that we should have studied footage of Carlos Kleiber at school to learn all there is to know about musical gesture.

I have had numerous highlights with my Leonore Trio and 360 colleagues. Playing duets with Imogen Cooper, Kathy Stott, Ivana Gavric, and Paul Lewis have been very pleasurable experiences.

As a soloist I would have to say that my recent cycle of Chopin at Wigmore Hall is a highlight. It was a cycle that I had dreamed of since I was a child, so to bring it to fruition is a great honour. Some of the pieces were pretty close to what I had in mind, which is always pleasing.

Andrew: Let’s finish with a question about what the future holds…

Tim: In the short term, concerts at Rusk Festival in Finland, concerts at Wigmore Hall with Leonore Trio and violist Lawrence Power, and more 360 concerts. I am starting a cycle of the complete Beethoven Sonatas at the Crucible in Sheffield in December. I am fully immersed in the first and second programmes at the moment. I played the cycle there fifteen years ago so it will be interesting to see what has happened in the interim.

In March next year I will be recording my first solo CD of Chopin and Szymanowski. This is a particular pleasure for me. Szymanowski is probably the most neglected great composer I know about. His music is endlessly fascinating, complex, both emotionally and compostionally, and it is interesting to trace his development from his early post-Chopin, post-Scriabin style to the mature Szymanowski. Watch this space!

Andrew: Tim, thank you for your candour in sharing with us. We’re really looking forward to hearing you perform in Milton Keynes!

Come and hear Tim perform in Milton Keynes!
Saturday 21st November 2026