bio
Edward Campbell-Rowntree was born in the north-east of England and studied piano with David Murray. He eventually went on to read Music at King’s College, London, taking piano lessons at the Royal Academy of Music with Oscar Caravaca and Hao Zi Yoh. He then went on to read for his Master’s in Musicology at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, where he wrote about the music of eighteenth-century France under the supervision of Professor Suzanne Aspen and Professor Laura Tunbridge.
Edd’s insatiable urge to perform has now led him to pursue the career of a concert pianist. Following a round of successful auditions in 2019 he has been awarded an entrance scholarship to study for an MMus in Piano Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. Edd is kindly supported by Help Musicians UK.
Edd has performed in such venues as the House of Commons (London), the Torre de Canyamel (Mallorca), the Festival Nerpio-Yetas (Spain), The Jacqueline du Pre Music Building (Oxford), New College Antechapel (Oxford), St Mary the Virgin (Newcastle) and the Sage Gateshead.
Edd’s repertoire ranges from Bach to George Benjamin, from Mozart to Federico Mompou. Although he is deeply rooted in the music of the eighteenth century, particularly François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, he is also passionate about the works of living composers such as Frederic Rzewski and Ronald Stevenson.
Edd continues to research and write about music and has written for such publications as the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS), the Oxford Review of Books and the Piano Tuners Association. He is a dedicated teacher and educator and teaches Music Language at the Young Musicians Programme (YMP) and the Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) based at the Sage Gateshead.
Beyond the piano, Edd enjoys DJing and producing house, techno and drum and bass music (a skill he picked up in a former life) as well as reading about history, running and enjoying the occasional pale ale.
Welcome to my website, where I’ve centralised my work as a pianist, writer and educator.
I’m a current PhD candidate in musicology at the University of Cambridge, funded by a Vice-Chancellor's & Rosalie Crawford Girton Studentship. Supervised by Professor Bettina Varwig, my research centres on harpsichord music and culture in seventeenth-century France, particularly in Paris and Versailles.
Before Cambridge, I studied music at King’s College, London (BMus), the University of Oxford (MSt), and the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester (MMus, PGDip) where I specialised in piano performance. At college I focused on the song repertoire, becoming a member of the RNCM Songsters and winning first prize in the inaugural Williams-Howard Memorial Competition. In 2023, I was made a Leeds Lieder Young Artist with soprano Georgie Malcolm; I also joined the University of Cambridge Lieder Scheme alongside tenor James Gant.
I’m incredibly lucky to have received tuition and guidance from Murray McLachlan, Richard Ormrod, Joseph Middleton and Simon Lepper, and to have performed in public masterclasses for Steven Osborne, Graham Johnson and Sir Thomas Allen. In 2022 I performed alongside Sir Stephen Hough in his song cycle And Other Love Songs.
Over the years I have received generous financial support from the Help Musicians UK, Northumberland Estates, the Ogeleby Charitable Trust, the Headley Trust, and the Eric Horner Award. Without the financial support of these generous donors my studies would have been impossible. Thank you.
