Biography

Robert Burgess began playing the piano at the age of four and was immediately captivated. By the time he left Kimbolton School in Cambridgeshire, he was a Grade 8 pianist with many school concerts and local performances under his belt — one highlight being a concert at Chequers for the then Prime Minister, John Major.

A collaborative pianist

After studying Actuarial Maths and Statistics at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, he decided to return to music and launched himself as a professional musician. Realising that he thrived particularly in the role of the collaborative pianist, he initially formed a partnership with a professional tenor and developed a touring programme of Victorian and Edwardian ballads and songs from the music hall.

This grew over five years into a larger professional ensemble, Upstairs Downstairs — a dramatic musical presentation of an Edwardian evening for tenor, bass, soprano and mezzo-soprano, with drawing-room ballads and popular arias ‘upstairs’ and Gilbert and Sullivan and music hall songs ‘downstairs’.

Training

After two years studying piano accompaniment under Eugene Asti at Trinity College of Music in London, Robert was awarded the Trinity/Guildhall Performance Diploma in Piano Accompaniment (ATCL) with Distinction. During his time at Trinity and since, he has performed extensively in public concerts and competitions as an accompanist to both vocal and instrumental musicians. Performances have included Schumann’s Dichterliebe, César Franck’s Violin Sonata in A, Schubert’s The Shepherd on the Rock and Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C.

Performing today

He regularly accompanies pupils and participants in competitive festivals. As a talented soloist, Robert has twice won the Cheltenham Festival Open Piano Solo competition. As principal accompanist for the Dursley Male Voice Choir, a particularly notable occasion was a packed charity concert at Cheltenham Town Hall with the eminent Welsh tenor Wynne Evans as guest soloist.

Robert accompanies pupils for their practical music exams, and has also enjoyed being involved in local amateur dramatic and operatic productions — including providing sixteenth-century incidental music for a memorable, award-winning production of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons at the annual Painswick Arts Festival in Gloucestershire.