BIOGRAPHY
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”
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”
SOLO RECITALIST, CHAMBER MUSICIAN
& CONCERTO SOLOIST
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 Laeiszhalle (Hamburg), Palace of Arts (Budapest), the Megaron (Athens), Konzerthaus Dortmund, the Gulbenkian Auditorium (Lisbon) and the Konserthus (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 was awarded 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 also 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) and the Powsin International Piano Festival (Poland). Ashley also gave 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 classical saxophonist Jonathan Radford (Champs Hill Records, 2022).
Ashley Fripp studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with Ronan O’Hora and with Eliso Virsaladze at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole (Italy). In 2021 he was awarded a doctorate for his research into the piano music of British composer Thomas Adès. Ashley has subsequently presented at doctoral conferences, given lecture recitals and is in demand to give masterclasses both in the UK and overseas. He holds regular masterclass residencies in the picturesque medieval village of Kallmünz in Germany.