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 Chapel-en-le-Frith and Didsbury and has given more than two hundred 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. Their recent projects have included performing all of Mozart’s works for piano and violin with Sarah Ewins and the complete Haydn piano trios with Sarah and Heather Bills. They are performing Beethoven’s complete chamber music with piano in Manchester, a project which will last for several years!
Harvey is a Fellow in Historical Performance and a staff pianist at the RNCM and teaches at Chetham’s School of Music. 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.
The Davies Duo, Harvey and his mother Helen, have worked together since 1990. They have performed and recorded extensively and commissioned many new works for piano duet as well as rediscovering some of the huge wealth of Classical and early Romantic 4-hand music. Their disc entitled ‘Diversity’, features works written for them by Welsh composers and was received to critical acclaim.
“The powerful symphonic structure of Kenneth Leighton’s Sonata for Four Hands was masterfully revealed in this authoritative performance”
Music Wales
“(The Davies Duo)…a fine reputation for intelligent, sensitive, technically assured and vital performances of a wide range of 20th century repertoire…”
British Music Society News.
“(Diversity) is a superb disc, and world class in terms of production, programme and performance.”
Musicweb International