Libby Burgess

Pianist and artistic director Libby Burgess is well-known on concert stages across Britain, playing in the country’s major halls and festivals, on Radio 3, and on a range of recordings. Equally respected for the striking tone of her programming, reflecting her own twin interests of song and chamber music, Libby is Artistic Director of New Paths Music, and Co-Artistic Director with Martin Roscoe of the Beverley Chamber Music Festival.

Libby is sought after as a vocal coach and song expert: she has been invited by RAM, RCM and GSMD to coach or examine their postgraduate students, and recently adjudicated Oxford Lieder’s Young Artist Programme. During lockdown she set up and ran a popular series of online workshops, ‘SongWorks’; she also coaches at Chetham’s School.

Working regularly with living composers, Libby has premiered numerous new works – most recently Stephen McNeff’s Three Pieces for Piano, and with Marcus Farnsworth the song cycle Everything Grows Extravaganty by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, selected by The Times as a highlight of 2021.

The seed of Libby’s love for working with voices was sown as organ scholar at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, where she read music; she then shifted her focus to the piano and completed her postgraduate studies at RAM. Libby was formerly Head of Keyboard at Eton, and is highly regarded as speaker and writer.

She is currently undertaking a nationwide Bach marathon, ‘Project 48’, performing the whole of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (‘The 48’) in every one of England’s 48 counties. To date the project has raised almost £28,000 for Help Musicians, Live Music Now, Future Talent and Youth Music.