Christopher Elton

Christopher's international recognition has come as a result of the many successes of his students at the royal academy of music.

Many have won international awards, including first prizes in the Van Cliburn and London World International Piano Competitions as well as in Jaen, Newport and Dudley. Further recent successes came in recent finals of the Tchaikovsky, Leeds, Dublin, Shanghai and Munich (ARD) and Taiwan International Competitions well as previous major awards in the international competitions in Santander, Geneva (CIEM), Geza Anda, Leipzig Bach, New Orleans, Pozzoli, Mazaro del Vallo, Porto, Madrid, Ettlingen and the Stravinsky Awards in the USA. Students have also been successful in the prestigious Young Concert Artists award in New York, as well as in the London Young Concert Artists Trust. Many of his students, such as Freddy Kempf, Ashley Wass and Yevgeny Sudbin are now successful recording artists with major contracts.

While his priority is to his work at the Academy, Christopher has also been much in demand overseas both as a teacher and as a jury member for international competitions including Moscow Tchaikovsky, Leeds International and many others. Within the last few years he has given masterclasses in the USA, Japan, Israel, Korea, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Spain, Germany and Ireland and Vietnam, many of them for important conservatories or universities. He has also been a jury member at competitions in Germany, Japan, Roumania and Ireland as well as in the UK. As an adjudicator he has worked both in festivals and on television in the UK, Canada and Hong Kong.

Christopher was a prize winner in several British and international piano competitions and continued his studies with Maria Curcio-Diamand, playing and broadcasting regularly both as a soloist and in chamber music. At the same time he worked as a freelance cellist with the major London orchestras. During recent years he has also given recitals in the USA, Ireland, Spain, Australia and Vietnam.

Born in Edinburgh, Christopher received most of his musical education at the Royal Academy of Music, where he achieved the unusual distinction of gaining the Academy’s highest performing award — the DipRAM — on both piano and cello. He was elected a Fellow in 1983. In 2002, he received the title of Professor of the University of London.