Biography

British pianist Ian Tindale is increasingly in demand in song and chamber music and has performed across London, the UK and Europe.

Ian read Music at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and continued his studies at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London with Simon Lepper, John Blakely and Roger Vignoles; he graduated with distinction in 2013. In 2017 Ian was awarded the Pianist’s Prize in the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation Song Competition following performances with duo partner soprano Harriet Burns. Ian has also won accompaniment prizes at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Royal Overseas League Music Competition, Gerald Moore Award and Maggie Teyte Competition. He is a Britten Pears Young Artist and a Samling Artist; Ian has performed at the Wigmore Hall Samling Showcase a number of times after being selected as a Samling Artist in 2014, and he continues to work as a pianist and coach for Samling Academy.

In 2018, Ian gave the world premiere of Daniel Kidane’s Songs of Illumination at the Leeds Lieder Festival with tenor Nick Pritchard. They gave the work its second performance in June 2019 in Harrogate, alongside song cycles by Finzi and Schumann. Ian returned to Leeds with Laurence Kilsby in 2021 to present a programme of Schubert, Schoenberg and Wolf.

Ian has formed a fruitful collaborative partnership with soprano Harriet Burns: they were awarded the Contemporary Song Prize in the 2019 International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and most recently they won the Maureen Forrester Second Prize and Prize for German Lied in the Art Song division of the Concours Musical International de Montreal. Together, they have also appeared in recital at the International Lied Festival Zeist, at the Oxford Lieder Festival, and at the Ryedale Festival where they collaborated with the Albion Quartet and flautist Adam Walker.

Other performance highlights for Ian include a recital tour throughout Europe with baritone and ECHO Rising Star Josep-Ramon Olivé in venues including Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and Palau de la Música, Barcelona in the 2018-19 season; a programme of songs on the topic of the natural world with baritone and BBC New Generation Artist James Newby for Lewes Festival of Song; and Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich songs for English Touring Opera and Marquee Arts TV. In October 2022 Ian curated and performed in 'Hiraeth: Celtic Perspectives' for the Ludlow English Song Festival Day at the Wigmore Hall and was joined by Ailish Tynan, Robin Tritschler, Elgan Thomas, Harriet Burns, Rosalind Ventris and Adam Walker for a programme celebrating contemporary and historic Celtic composers. Ian also returned to the Oxford Lieder Festival with Nick Pritchard for Finzi, Gurney and Clarke in October 2022.

As a chamber musician, most recently Ian has partnered Annelien van Wauwe in recitals at Ryedale Festival and on the BBC. Ian is also a member of Ensemble Kopernikus, whose recent recording projects include the first two discs in a planned series of recordings exploring the chamber music of Percy Hilder Miles for MPR.

Ian is also Founder and Artistic Director of Shipston Song, a new song festival on the edge of the Cotswolds. In September 2022, the festival presented works by Vaughan Williams, Josephine Lang, and Eleanor Alberga with artists such as James Gilchrist, Julien van Mellaerts and Jess Dandy.