Richard William Batsford (born 25 October 1969) is an English pianist, composer and singer-songwriter. He is a recording artist and a frequent performer, initially in and around his birthplace in Birmingham, England, and more recently in
Adelaide
Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...
, Australia, presenting concerts featuring original solo piano music with a classical influence.
Batsford is also a co-creator of creative network
Project X Presents and Musituality, a platform for musicians of various faiths to perform together.
Biography
Early life
Born in Birmingham, Batsford lived from early childhood in and around the suburban
Moseley
Moseley ( ') is an affluent suburb in south Birmingham, England, south of the city centre.
It is located within the eponymous Moseley ward of the constituency of Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley (UK Parliament constituency), Hall Green and ...
area, known as a focal point for the city's musical and creative communities.
Beginning his musical and vocal training as a choirboy in
St Marys Church, he went on to sing in the
National Youth Choir and the
CBSO Chorus.
Early career
In the 1990s, Batsford performed as singer and main songwriter in indie guitar-based bands including Maroon.
Two of his dark, short stories were published in fiction magazines in the UK and America.
For ten years, he booked and promoted comedy show The GAG Club, worked as a booking agent and artist agent as well as performing as a stand-up comic, and he was one of the original partners in setting up the Birmingham Comedy Festival.
He wrote numerous preview articles about stand-up comedy and classical music for the Metro Newspaper and appeared as an actor in 'Perfect Scenario', a featurette produced as an extra for the BBC DVD release of ''
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
'' serial 'Frontier in Space'.
Solo career
In 2007, Batsford collaborated with
krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...
/shoegaze band
Einstellung, for a concert named 'Das Land Ohne Musik' in which Batsford both supported and accompanied the band, highlighting elements of post-rock shared by both artists.
A live album recording of the concert was released in early 2018.
In September 2009, Batsford released ''Valentine Court'', a debut album of solo piano music on his own Mouflon Music label, drawing comparisons with minimalist composers
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer best known as a pioneer of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich descr ...
and
Philip Glass
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...
and impressionist
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 ...
. A new recording of the album was released in 2018 entitled ''Valentine Court Recaught''.
In 2009, he made his major festival debut with an appearance at
The Big Chill music festival performing in the Vida La Vida tent curated by ambient DJ
Mixmaster Morris and was given an encore. Other festival appearances include Gigbeth,
Drop Beats Not Bombs
and
ArtsFest - the latter on an outdoor stage in Birmingham's
Centenary Square.
In June 2011, he showcased ''Mindfulmess'', an album of songs with a well received concert at
mac
Mac or MAC may refer to:
Common meanings
* Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc.
* Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth
* Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages
* McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...
(the Midlands Arts Centre).
The album, released in 2012, features lyrics partly inspired by his
Buddhist
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
spiritual practice, with elaborate vocal harmonies owing a debt to a lifelong appreciation of pop artist
Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson (June 20, 1942 – June 11, 2025) was an American musician, songwriter, singer and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often Brian Wilson is a genius, called a genius for his novel approaches to pop compositio ...
, all accompanied by his delicate trademark piano patterns.
He performed his show ''Mindfulmess'' at both the Edinburgh and Melbourne Fringes in 2012 and the Adelaide Fringe in 2013 presenting a biographical performance which was praised by Fringe Review for its "harmonious and artful transitions from light to dark, despondent to hopeful".
He performed at the Adelaide fringe again in 2014, with a show called "Classically Chilled Piano",
which was rated as an 'Outstanding Show' by Fringe Review and again in 2015, with a show called "Piano Amoroso".
His third album, ''In The Moment'', a collection of ten solo piano improvisations was released in 2014.
Also in 2014 Batsford was chosen via a competitive process to compose and perform a score to Australian silent feature film, ''Robbery Under Arms''.
A piano piece called "Saticity" has been included in the release of ''Erik Satie et les Nouveaux Jeunes Version 2'', an album of tributes to the composer
Erik Satie
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (born 17 May 18661 July 1925), better known as Erik Satie, was a French composer and pianist. The son of a French father and a British mother, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, Paris Conservatoire but was an undi ...
by French label Arbouse Recordings and another, "Mysterious Moment", on an album by Greek pianist Kosmas Lapatas.
In early 2016, Batsford collaborated with projection artist Zero from Illuminart, to produce an audio visual project called "Piano Illuminato", which was presented in Adelaide Town Hall.
Batsford's own recordings of his solo piano music have been broadcast on Australia's national classical radio station ABC Classic FM.
He also composes choral music using Buddhist texts, under his Buddhist name, Sarvadarśin.
Since July 2018 a relationship with US digital label Sonder House has resulted in the release of several solo piano tracks, and also an EP recorded in collaboration with Australian sound artist, Jason Sweeney.
Batsford plays a
Roland
Roland (; ; or ''Rotholandus''; or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. The historical Roland was mil ...
FP4 digital piano.
Collaborative projects
Project X Presents
Batsford co-created the creative network
Project X Presents with Marc Reck,
Anne-Marie Pope
and Anthony Ramm,
producing a series of five events dubbed "Omnimedia Experiences" beginning with Like Fxck in July 2006 in the Epic Skate Park in Birmingham. The events featured artists from a wide range of disciplines coming together to blend their work into a seamless, immersive event lasting up to seven hours, usually presented across three stages, with the audience in the middle The Birmingham Post described the event as "destabilising the established role of the 'spectator' in performance theatre and drawing you in to an impressively eclectic and complex mix of art forms".
Musituality
The Musituality project grew out of a series of concerts called "Music by Candlelight" St Mary's Church, Moseley, organised by Rich Batsford as part of the Moseley Festival.
The concert held in July 2008 included a small choir called St Mary's Schola, which consists of a double quartet of singers drawn from St Mary's Church Choir, alongside performances of Qawwali and nasheed from Islamic vocal group
A'ashiq Al Rasul.
Inspired by the success of the event, in particular the coming together of
Christian
A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...
and
Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
ic elements in a Christian building, Mick Perrier of St Marys Schola and Amran Ellahi of A’ashiq Al Rasul joined with Rich Batsford to create Musituality—a
portmanteau
In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. combining the words music and spirituality.
The project was launched to a full capacity audience at
Birmingham Cathedral in 2009 in a concert well received by the local music community.
A further concert in 2010 at the
Birmingham Buddhist Centre saw the same collaboration.
Personal life
Batsford stood as candidate for the
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice.
Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...
in
Acocks Green ward in the 2004 local government elections. In 2012 he emigrated to
Adelaide
Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...
, Australia, where he became involved with the
Adelaide Buddhist Centre.
He was ordained into the
Triratna Buddhist Order as
Dhammacārī Sarvadarśin ("Sarvadarśin" being a name meaning "all seeing") in New South Wales.
He developed
Dupuytren's contracture, for which he underwent successful surgery at
Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide in 2013.
Discography
*
*
*
*
*
Bibliography
* (includes poems by Batsford
)
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Batsford, Rich
1969 births
Living people
Musicians from Birmingham, West Midlands
English composers
English contemporary pianists
English male singer-songwriters
English singer-songwriters
English Buddhists
Musicians from Adelaide
21st-century British pianists
21st-century British male singers