Iain Burnside

Biography

Interweaving roles as pianist and Sony-Award-winning radio presenter with equal aplomb, Iain Burnside (“pretty much ideal” BBC Music Magazine) is also - as ‘Century Songs’ demonstrated - a master programmer with an instinct for the telling juxtaposition. His recordings straddle an exuberantly eclectic repertoire ranging from Schoenberg and Copland to Debussy and Judith Weir - with a special place reserved for the highways and byways of English Song, as his recent acclaimed recordings of Britten, Finzi and Vaughan Williams have proved. In 2014 Delphian will release Burnside's complete Rachmaninov songs, with seven outstanding Russian artists.

Iain has written and devised a number of highly individual theatre pieces for the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Lads in their Hundreds, an exploration of war songs, played in London and at the Ludlow Weekend of English Song (read Iain’s article about developing the piece in the Guardian). 

A Soldier and a Maker, based on the life of Ivor Gurney, was premiered at the Barbican Centre, transferring to the Cheltenham Festival. Journeying Boys, developed in association with the Royal College  of Music, will be performed in November 2013 in the Guildhall School’s Milton Court Theatre.

In demand as teacher and animateur, Burnside also works at the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, the National Opera Studio and the Royal Irish Academy of Music.