Gordon Fergus-Thompson FRCM (born 9 March 1952) is an English concert

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

Biography

Fergus-Thompson's first piano teacher wa
Christine Brown
a pupil of

Denis Matthews Denis Matthews (27 February 191925 December 1988) was an English pianist and musicologist whose performing career flourished after the war, during the 1950s and into the 1960s. He later turned increasingly to broadcasting, writing and teaching. ...

. Subsequently, he became a student of Gordon Green at the

Royal Northern College of Music The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) is a conservatoire located in Manchester, England. It is one of four conservatoires associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. In addition to being a centre of music education ...

where he studied from 1968 until his graduation in 1973. Later, he studied with Alexis Weissenberg and

John Ogdon John Andrew Howard Ogdon (27 January 1937 – 1 August 1989) was an English pianist and composer. Biography Career Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire; his family moved to Manchester when he was eight. He attended the M ...

and was a student of Peter Katin at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

. Fergus-Thompson made his concert debut concert at the

Wigmore Hall The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...

in 1976. Two years later he was the recipient of a Calouste Gulbenkian Fellowship. In 1979 he performed the world premiere of

William Mathias William James Mathias CBE (1 November 1934 – 29 July 1992) was a Welsh composer noted for choral works. Biography William Mathias was born in Whitland, Carmarthenshire. A child prodigy, he started playing the piano at the age of three and b ...

's ''Piano Sonata No.2, Op. 46''. He performed the premiere of Christopher Headington's ''Piano Concerto'' which he recorded in 1997 for an album of Headington's music released just after the composer's death. Fergus-Thompson has been a professor of piano at the

since 1996. He was awarded a FRCM in May 2010. He has given masterclasses throughout the UK, USA, Australia and the Far East. Fergus-Thompson has performed as soloist with the

Philharmonia Orchestra The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI Classics, EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Rich ...

English Chamber Orchestra The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. With a limited performance size, the orchestra spe ...

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. It is the resident orchestra at Symphony Hall, Birmingham in Birmingham, which has been its principal performance venue since 1991. Its adminis ...

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Royal Liverpool Philharmonic is a music organisation based in Liverpool, England, that manages a professional symphony orchestra, a concert venue, and extensive programmes of learning through music. Its orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmo ...

, Hallé Orchestra,

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an English orchestra, founded in 1893 and originally based in Bournemouth. With a remit to serve the South and South West of England, the BSO is administratively based in the adjacent town of Poole, s ...

, the

BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The ...

, the

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (GSO; ) is a Swedish symphony orchestra based in Gothenburg. The GSO is resident at the Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen. The orchestra received the title of the National Orchestra of Sweden () in 1997. Ba ...

and the

Residentie Orchestra Het Residentie Orkest (; known also in English as ''Residentie Orkest The Hague'') is a Dutch orchestra based in The Hague. The orchestra is currently resident at the Amare performing arts centre in The Hague. History Henri Viotta founded the orch ...

. Conductors under whose baton he has performed include Evgenii Svetlanov, Jacek Kaspszyk, Sir Edward Downes, Helmut Muller-Bruhl, Moshe Atzmon,

David Atherton David Atherton (born 3 January 1944) is an English conductor and founder of the London Sinfonietta. Background Atherton was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, into a musical family. He was educated at Blackpool Grammar School. His father, Rober ...

and Sir Charles Groves. He has performed numerous recitals on

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

. He recorded the complete piano music of

Claude Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

in 1989 for

ASV Records ASV Records was a London-based record label set up by Harley Usill, founder of Argo Records (UK), Argo Records, Decca producer and former Argo general manager, Kevin Daly, and producer Jack Boyce, after Argo's parent company Decca Records, Decc ...

in five volumes, which won the MRA Best Instrumental Recording of the Year and a Penguin Guide Rosette, and is regarded by many as one of the best interpretations of Debussy's piano music in the classical music recording industry. It was reissued several times, including a budget release on

Brilliant Classics Brilliant Classics is a classical music label based in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden. It is renowned for releasing super-budget-priced editions on CD of the complete works of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and many other composers. The label also s ...

(paired with Paul Crossley's recording of

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

's complete piano music), then once again on the same label (lacking the Ravel). In 2018 it was licensed by

Eloquence Eloquence (from French language, French ''eloquence'' from Latin ''eloquentia'') is the quality of speech or writing that is marked by fluency, elegancy, and persuasiveness. It is also defined as one of the aims of formal oratory and, in this ...

and reissued on a more compact 4-disc set. ClassicsToday.com described his Debussy as: "the most consistent in quality among modern editions...The pianist's robust, colourful sonority and sensitive phrasing perfectly suit this alluring, atmospheric repertoire". Classical music critic Julian Haylock said (when referring to his interpretation of the '' Préludes''): "Fergus-Thompson's range of tone colour, and control of dynamic and texture are nothing short of transcendental".

References

External links

Debretts' entry for Gordon Fergus-Thompson, Esq.Official website of Gordon Fergus-Thompson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fergus-Thompson, Gordon 1952 births Living people English male classical pianists Alumni of the Royal College of Music Fellows of the Royal College of Music Alumni of the Royal Northern College of Music Academics of the Royal College of Music 21st-century English classical pianists 21st-century English male musicians