British pianist John Lill shot to international stardom when he won the most coveted piano prize in the world, the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. The jury were extremely impressed not only with the virtuoso brilliance of his technique but also with his remarkable maturity, imagination and artistry, which his outstanding technical fluency served so effortlessly. That was in 1970 when he was 26 years old, but in fact he was already a highly established veteran of the piano, having made his professional debut at the Royal Festival Hall in 1963. Even then he had behind him ten years of performing experience, as John Lill was a child prodigy who had made his debut at the age of 9 years old, in 1953.

The Tchaikovsky Competition prize immediately led to engagements with major international orchestras and highly sought after conductors such as Sir John Barbirolli, Eugene Jochum, Seiji Ozawa, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, and Yevgeni Svetlanov. Ever since then he has been greatly in demand all over the world as a recitalist and concerto player. In the USA he has performed concertos with four of the ‘big five’ East Coast Orchestras: the Boston Symphony, Cleveland, New York Philharmonic, and Philadelphia. In the UK he is a regular guest of the country’s major orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Hallé, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and Royal Scottish National. Major European orchestras John Lill has performed with include the Leipzig Gewandhaus, St Petersburg Philharmonic, and Stockholm Philharmonic.

John Lill’s vast repertoire not only includes more than sixty concertos but also extremely wide-ranging solo works. His recitals and concerto performances have been acclaimed in more than forty countries, including Russia, Japan, the United States, and all the Western European lands, including the cultural centres of Vienna, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Prague, Paris, Stockholm, Rome, St Petersburg, Moscow, and New York.

John Lill has been greatly admired by audiences and musicologists for the depth of his readings as well as his technical mastery. He intensively studies the entire oeuvre and lives of the composers whose music he performs, and he has performed outstanding cycles of the complete solo piano works and piano concertos of composers as diverse as Beethoven (he is recognised as one of the world’s leading Beethoven interpreters), Prokofiev, and Rachmaninov.

John Lill is a prolific recording artist. His most remarkable contribution to the recording catalogues is his series of complete works of a wide range of artists: all the piano solo and concerto works of Beethoven and Rachmaninov, and all the Prokofiev piano Sonatas.