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Pianist
Jonathan Plowright has specialized in Polish piano music, performing unknown works as well as standard repertory by
Chopin. He has also recorded the complete piano works of
Brahms and is an important educator.
Plowright was born on September 24, 1959, in Doncaster in England's Yorkshire region. He attended Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit school in Lancashire, and went on to the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied with Alexander Kelly and won the school's gold medal. Earning a Fulbright Scholarship for studies in the U.S.,
Plowright worked with Julio Esteban at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. He made his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1984 and his British debut the following year at Wigmore Hall in London. A European Piano Competition win in 1989 helped his career along, and since then,
Plowright has appeared with top-drawer instrumentalists and ensembles. He has performed concertos with the
London Philharmonic,
Royal Philharmonic, and the
Warsaw Philharmonic, as well as several BBC groups.
Plowright has joined leading chamber ensembles, including the
Brodsky and
Szymanowski Quartets, and his duet partners have included pianists
Piers Lane and
Artur Pizarro and cellist
Raphael Wallfisch. As a solo recitalist,
Plowright has focused on Polish music, covering not only well-known works of
Chopin but also little-known Polish Romantic composers such as Zygmunt Stojowski,
Ignace Jan Paderewski, and Juliusz Zarębski. He has also performed works from western Europe and Britain, and he gave the world premiere of the Piano Concerto of
Constant Lambert.
Plowright has been especially visible through his recordings, made mostly for the Hyperion and BIS labels. In 2002, he released a recording of Stojowski's two piano concertos as part of the Hyperion label's The Romantic Piano Concerto series, and much of his recorded output has involved Polish composers. He also recorded the complete solo piano works of
Brahms for BIS between 2012 and 2017.
Plowright returned to Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series in 2021, joining the
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor
Lukasz Borowicz for performances of piano concertos by Jerzy Gablenz and Ignace Jan Paderewski.