Recording A Beethoven Odyssey: In the summer of 2013, James Brawn traveled two hundred miles from his home in the Cotswolds to Suffolk on the east coast of England near Aldeburgh. His producer, Jeremy Hayes, lives at Potton Hall. Hayes converted a barn on the property into a studio. Surrounded by fields and forest, it is far removed from the routines of daily life, which makes this an idyllic recording location. The team has just three days to record four Beethoven sonatas: Op.2 No.2, The Tempest, and Les Adieux for Volume 3, and Op.78 for Volume 4. In order to reacquaint himself with the Steinway piano, James arrives the night before. His longtime piano tuner, Peter Law, joins him. James quickly familiarizes himself with the Steinway's action and wonderfully warm sound. The entire group - pianist James Brawn, producer Jeremy Hayes, tuner Peter Law, and sound engineer Ben Connellan - convenes in the studio on day one. As with Brawn's previous recordings at Potton Hall, he will begin by performing the entire program without a break. Fully aware of the musical and technical challenges that all performances entail, Brawn feels the usual mixture of trepidation and excitement. Nothing demands more of a pianist than Beethoven! Brawn s goal is to create something special, honest and convincing, which means that each note and phrase in every movement must feel and sound just right to him.
The release of A Beethoven Odyssey Volume 3 brings the project to nearly the halfway point. Brawn has opted to include all repeats and therefore expects to record nine volumes, four of which 15 sonatas out of 32 in all - should be completed in 2014.
Pianist James Brawn began his solo career at age 12 with an Australian debut in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25. Brawn traces his professional achievements to study with major teachers whose pedagogical lineage goes back to Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Clara Schumann. Yet he has also forged his own musical path in solo and chamber music performance. Born in England in 1971, his musical life started in New Zealand, where he began piano lessons at age seven. He played Bartok on New Zealand television and won his first awards in Auckland. The following year his family moved to Australia, where he studied with Margaret Schofield, Ronald Farren-Price and Rita Reichman. He won major prizes at all of the Melbourne competitions and was also a recipient of the Hephzibah Menuhin Award. In 1987, Brawn reached the concerto final of the ABC Young Performers Awards, which led to concerts with the Adelaide and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras. Thanks to a grant from the Australia Arts Council, he was able to continue study with Rita Reichman in Philadelphia. In 1988, Brawn received a full scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London where he won numerous recital awards, including the Beethoven Prize and 20th Century Prize. Brawn won the Keyboard Final of the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition at the Queen Elizabeth Hall when he was just 19. Solo recitals and chamber music partnerships at music societies and festivals in the UK followed. From 1993-2001, Brawn taught piano and chamber music at King's College and St. John's College schools in Cambridge. He returned to Australia in 2001 to take up a piano teaching position at the highly regarded Scotch College, where he co-founded the biennial Scotch College Piano Festival. He returned to the United Kingdom in 2010 and is currently based in the Cotswolds. Brawn regularly performs solo recitals in London at St. James's Piccadilly, Blackheath Halls, Foundling Museum, The Forge, Royal Over-Seas League, and St. Olave Church. Among his most significant engagements to date are the Bosendorfer concert series at St. Mary Magdalene and the Pianists of the World series at St.Martin-in-the-Fields.
