Duncan Honeybourne

Duncan Honeybourne (born 27 October 1977 at Weymouth, Dorset) 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 (Irish) Radio FM3 and has appeared on BBC and RTÉ Television. He has appeared as solo recitalist at the Three Choirs and other British festivals and has toured extensively to numerous music clubs and arts societies throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Éire. His concerto performances have included works by Brahms (Piano Concerto no.2), Rachmaninov (Concertos 2 & 3), the Schumann Piano Concerto (including at Birmingham’s CBSO Centre in 2001), Grieg, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven (1,3 and 5), Franck, Hindemith, Shostakovich and Finzi. He 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 and the Piano Sonata no.2 by Andrew Downes. He gave the world premiere of the Andrew Downes Piano Concerto at Birmingham Town Hall on 1 March 2009.

Duncan Honeybourne is a Piano Tutor and Coach/Accompanist at Bryanston School in Dorset, where he has been a visiting staff member since January 2003. From 2005-2008 he was also a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chichester, where he devised and presented two seven-recital series, "Masterworks of Piano Music" and "Piano Plus", on the historic Steinway Model D piano in the University's Chapel of the Ascension. He is Founder and Artistic Director of the Weymouth Lunchtime Chamber Concerts and, as an occasional writer on music, has written articles and obituaries for The Times, The Birmingham Post, the Cardiff Western Mail and other journals. He has devised and written several words and music programmes, including Dearest Tania, a portrait of the legendary pianist and society figure Harriet Cohen, which he has presented with actresses Louisa Clein and Joanna David.

Duncan Honeybourne's discography includes "Piano Music from the Midlands", a 2-CD issue recorded live in recital in Birmingham and released in April 2008, featuring works by Havergal Brian, Christopher Edmunds, Richard Francis, Edward Bache, Ruth Byrchmore, Andrew Downes and John Joubert. A CD of piano music by Moeran and Howells, released on the Winterbourne Records label, was launched on Honeybourne's recital tour of Ireland in October 2010.