Biography

Gavin Roberts enjoys a varied career as a pianist, organist, conductor, director and coach. He is a professor and staff pianist at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Associate Musician at St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Artistic Director of Song in the City. He has performed at Wigmore Hall, the Barbican Hall and the Royal Festival Hall, as well as at festivals including Cheltenham, Oundle, Dartington, the Ludlow Weekend of English Song, Ryedale and Oxford Song.

Gavin’s collaborators have included singers Lucy Hall, Andrew Watts, James Gilchrist, Carolyn Sampson, Robin Tritschler, Ailish Tynan, Jess Dandy, David Greco, Gareth Brynmor John, Madeleine Holmes, Eleanor Rolfe Johnson, Donna Lennard and Amanda Pitt; instrumentalists Alan Hacker, Janet Hilton, Clare Hoskins, Angus Meryon, Graham Johnson and Libby Burgess; and conductors Sir Roger Norrington and Richard Hickox. He has worked with the BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Academy of Ancient Music, Hanover Band, National Youth Choir, Schola Cantorum of Oxford, Joyful Company of Singers, Brighton Festival Chorus, Constanza Chorus, Kingston Choral Society, Tiffin Boys’ Choir and Fulham and Hammersmith Choral Society. He has appeared on BBC Radio as a soloist and accompanist and contributed to recordings for the BBC, ASV, Guild, and Priory Records.

As Artistic Director of Song in the City since 2011, Gavin has devised more than 150 concerts, often linking song repertoire to contemporary social themes. The charity’s work brings together professional and emerging musicians, community participants and audiences through performances, commissions and interdisciplinary projects. He pioneered Creative Minds in Song, a collaboration with Guildhall School and local Mind services in which writers with lived experience of mental ill health work with composers, singers and pianists to create new songs.

His collaborations across art forms include a choreographed performance of Schubert’s Winterreise at RAMBERT, a London Fashion Week shows for designer Patrick McDowell, and performances with actor Rosamund Shelley in her one-woman shows Novello & Son and War Songs. He has given numerous premieres and has also composed his own works. His recording projects include Voices of London, a collection of Song in the City commissions by Raymond Yiu, Joseph Atkins, James Lark and Graham Ross.

Gavin’s conducting and educational work includes directing the Guildhall Consort and leading choral workshops at the Music Summer School and Festival. He served as Artistic Director of the St Marylebone Festival for five seasons and was Director of Music at St Marylebone Parish Church from 2014 to 2022.

Gavin read Music at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he held the organ scholarship, before gaining a master’s degree with distinction at King’s College London. He subsequently studied piano accompaniment with Andrew West and Eugene Asti at Guildhall School, graduating with a master’s degree with distinction. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and a trustee of Finzi Friends.