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The Australian pianist, Antony Gray (Tony Gray), was educated in Victoria, Australia. He graduated from the Victorian College of Arts where he studied with Roy Shepherd and Stephen McIntyre, winning several awards and prizes, including the Allans Keyboard Award two years running. In 1982 he received a scholarship from the Astra foundation to continue his studies in London with Joyce Rathbone and Geoffrey Parsons.
Antony Gray, based now in London, has long been regarded as one of the most interesting and communicative performers of his generation. His career to date has encompassed solo and chamber music performances around the world, as well as regular recordings for CD and radio. He has been a (selective) champion of contemporary and, and has premiered many pieces written for him. He has also championed many neglected composers such as George Enescu, Dussek and Martinu. From his time at College he has been a champion of many living composers, and his work with Australian composers Malcolm Williamson and John Carmichael has been particularly productive.
Antony Gray is one of ABC Classics' most prolific recording artists, having recorded fourteen discs of solo piano music for the label, as well as featuring on a recital disc for KNS Classical and a number of other recording projects. Recordings already released are the complete solo piano works of Eugene Goossens, Malcolm Williamson (this recording has been included in a recent survey of 1001 recordings to hear before you die) and John Carmichael, as well as the late piano pieces of Johannes Brahms, on ABC Classics. He also features in a performance of the John Carmichael piano quartet on the highly successful disc 'Sea Changes'. To be released in the near future will be a 3 disc set of Bach transcriptions, including several written specially for the recording, and a 5 disc set of the complete piano works of Francis Poulenc, including a number of works recorded for the first time, all on ABC Classics. A recital disc for the Spanish label KNS Classical was released early in 2005. He has also been involved in a disc of music by French composer François Sarhan (‘Hell, a small detail’) on the Zig Zag label as well as the Chandos Percy Grainger series. He has recently embarked on a major project to record all of Camille Saint-Saëns’ piano music, including a large body of unpublished and previously unrecorded works. |
