Harvey Davies
Piano
Harvey Davies studied the piano with Helen Davies and David Parkhouse then with Ryszard Bakst at the Royal Northern College of Music. His career as a chamber musician has taken him to four continents and throughout the UK.
With his wife, the ‘cellist Heather Bills, Harvey has founded the Manchester-based chamber group The Pleyel Ensemble. Comprising wind, strings and piano, the Pleyels are known for championing British chamber music and lesser-known Classical works. The Ensemble runs concert series in Mellor and Didsbury and has given hundreds of concerts across the UK since its formation in 2011. In 2019/20 they were Making Music featured Artists for the second time in three years. The Pleyel Ensemble have released a pioneering four-volume set of the chamber music of Arnold Cooke on the MPR label. Most of the works recorded are world premières. 2024 has seen the release of a disc of first recordings of the piano trios and works for ‘cello and piano by Thomas Pitfield on the Divine Art label. Their recent projects have included programming all of Mozart’s works for piano and violin with Sarah Ewins and the complete Haydn piano trios with Sarah and Heather Bills and they have just finished performing Beethoven’s complete chamber music with piano in their Didsbury concert series, a project which ran to 33 concerts.
Harvey is Professor of piano, Fellow in Historical Performance and a staff pianist at the RNCM and teaches at Chetham’s School of Music. He received a PhD in 2022 for his work on the life and music of composer Arnold Cooke. He has collaborated with many eminent musicians including the Alberni, Benyounes, Callino and Carducci Quartets, Atar Arad, Alison Balsom, James Bowman, Rebecca Evans, James Gilchrist, Tony Halstead, Janet Hilton, Guy Johnston, Jennifer Pike and Elena Urioste and as a freelance player, Harvey has worked with the Hallé Orchestra, RLPO, Manchester Camerata, Northern Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Collective and the contemporary music group Ensemble 10/10.