James Gibb (pianist)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

James Gibb (7 March 1918 – 16 June 2013) was an English pianist and teacher. He was born in Monkseaton, Tyneside, into a wealthy family, and his sister was also a pianist. He studied in Edinburgh, receiving his first piano lessons from George Ramsay Geikie, and later studied with Mabel Lander, who had studied with Theodor Leschetizky.

Before the war in London, Gibb was part of the socialist circle around the Unity Theatre in King's Cross. He befriended people like Alfie Bass, Randall Swingler, and the piano duo Mary and Geraldine Peppin, and he marched against Oswald Mosley’s fascists in 1938. He formed friendships with composers Constant Lambert, Alan Rawsthorne, and Bernard Stevens, whose music he later performed and recorded. During World War II he served as a radio operator with the Royal Artillery, based in Hamburg, and gave concerts for the troops.

Gibb made his Proms debut in 1949, playing Dohnányi's Variations on a Nursery Song, and he appeared at the festival regularly for about a decade. The same year he made his international debut, performing Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto in Hamburg with the North-West German Radio Orchestra. His repertoire included works by British composers as well as Scarlatti, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert. In 1951 he helped stage the UK premiere of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock at the Unity Theatre, and he gave the British premiere of Balakirev's Second Piano Concerto.

Gibb began teaching at the Guildhall School of Music in the 1960s, becoming head of keyboard studies in 1967. He sometimes played four-handed piano with his colleague Edith Vogel. His pupils included Andreas Boyde, Alissa Firsova, Ivana Gavrić, John Tilbury, and Debbie Wiseman. He retired in 2002. Gibb lived at 10 Regent's Park Road, NW1, from 1956 until his death in 2013 at age 95. He suffered from dementia in his final years.