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British pianist
Anna Tilbrook is one of the most in-demand vocal accompanists and chamber music players active today. She has also been active as a vocal coach and repetiteur.
A native of England's Hertfordshire region,
Tilbrook was trained at York University and later, on scholarship, at the Royal Academy of Music, where she won a host of accompaniment prizes and became an Associate in 2009. She made her debut at Wigmore Hall in 1999 and has since joined a variety of singers and top chamber music groups at festivals and major concert hall appearances.
Tilbrook has worked with an impressive range of singers and instrumentalists, most of them British. These have included
Lucy Crowe, with whom she made her debut at Carnegie Hall in New York,
Mark Padmore,
Iestyn Davies, Nick Daniel,
Jack Liebeck, and
Barbara Hannigan. In television concerts mounted by the Welsh National Opera she has performed with the likes of
Bryn Terfel,
José Carreras, and
Angela Gheorghiu. Her most lasting collaboration has been with tenor
James Gilchrist, with whom she has explored the 20th century English song repertory. Their recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams' On Wenlock Edge was a finalist in the 2008 Gramophone Awards, and they have recorded song cycles by
Gerald Finzi,
Kenneth Leighton, and
Benjamin Britten, as well as earning an Editor's Choice nod from Gramophone for recordings of
Schubert's song cycles. As a chamber player she has worked with the
Sacconi,
Barbirolli, and
Elias string quartets. As a rehearsal pianist and coach she has worked with top-flight organizations, including the
London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Opera. She has also played Baroque continuo, and directed a Buxton Festival performance of
Telemann's Pimpinone from the harpsichord.
Tilbrook's catalog of recordings is large and was augmented in 2018 by a viola version of
Ralph Vaughan Williams' Six Studies in English Folksong, performed with violist
Philip Dukes, which appeared on the Chandos label.