Duncan Honeybourne

Who is Duncan Honeybourne?

Duncan Honeybourne is an English pianist, teacher and lecturer.

Honeybourne began his studies at the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department, where he won the senior piano prize. He gave his first London recital at the age of fifteen and toured extensively throughout Britain as solo recitalist and concerto soloist. Awarded a place to continue at the RAM, he chose instead to move to the Birmingham Conservatoire where he graduated in 2000 with a B.Mus First Class Honours degree and won many prizes. In February 2007 he received the honorary award of HonBC from the Conservatoire for his distinguished contribution to the music profession. His teachers included Rosemarie Wright and Philip Martin, and his further piano studies were in London with John York, Leeds with Fanny Waterman, and subsequently for three years on a Goldenweiser Scholarship in London with the Russian pianist Mikhail Kazakevich.

Duncan Honeybourne made his debut as soloist at Symphony Hall, Birmingham and the National Concert Hall, Dublin, in November 1998. Since then he has developed an active and varied career throughout the UK and Ireland as soloist, lecture recitalist, chamber musician and teacher. He has given solo recitals at major venues in London, Birmingham, Dublin, Cork and most of the principal British and Irish cities, has broadcast as a solo pianist on BBC Radio 3, RTÉ Radio FM3, RTÉ Lyric FM and Radio New Zealand Concert and has appeared on BBC and RTÉ Television. He has given recitals at leading festivals and has toured extensively to numerous music clubs and arts societies throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Éire. His concerto performances and recital programmes have encompassed a wide repertoire, including concertos by Brahms, Rachmaninov, Schumann, Grieg, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Franck, Hindemith, Shostakovich, Ferguson and Finzi, but Honeybourne has achieved particular renown as an interpreter of British piano music and has given premieres of new works dedicated to him by several leading composers, including the Piano Sonata no.3 by John Joubert, the Piano Sonata no.2 by Andrew Downes and Four Nocturnes by Sadie Harrison. He gave the world premiere of the Andrew Downes Piano Concerto at Birmingham Town Hall on 1 March 2009.