‘A distinguished scholar and pianist’ Gramophone Magazine
Ann Martin-Davis’s love of 20th century and contemporary art crosses all genres and much of her career has been spent exploring new and appealing ways of presenting solo piano and chamber music.
Her work has ‘reinvigorated chamber music’ (The Times) and her innovations in this area were recognised by the Royal Philharmonic Society when her Sound Bites programme (Nigella Lawson recipe songs) was nominated alongside Glyndebourne Opera for its prestigious Audience Development Award.
Ann Martin-Davis studied at the Royal College of Music with Phyllis Sellick, where she won the College’s premier piano prize, the Chappell Gold Medal. A series of awards led to a South Bank debut and she subsequently won scholarships to study with Arie Vardi in Hanover and Gyorgy Sebok at the Banff School in Canada.
At this time Ann played to the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski and her subsequent disc of his solo piano and chamber works was described as ‘beautiful and exquisite’ by BBC Music Magazine. Her recent disc of Ravel for Guild has also been critically acclaimed; described by Gramophone as having a ‘delicacy and simplicity; it’s tender melancholy are thoroughly convincing’.
Ann teaches at the Royal College of Music Junior Department and is co-director of ‘Piano at Le Maillard’ which hosts retreats at her home in the Charente and online workshops. She has been described as an ‘inspirational’ coach and presenter and recently calculated that over the last five years she has trained over four thousand teachers for professional associations throughout South East Asia, Australia and the UK.