Nigel Foster

Nigel Foster was born in London and studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His teachers were Roger Vignoles, Graham Johnson and Iain Burnside. At both the Academy and the Guildhall he won every prize and award available for piano accompaniment, and has since been appointed an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. Nigel enjoys a busy schedule performing on the concert platform. He has played for singers including Sergei Leiferkus, the late Philip Langridge, Sarah Walker, Yvonne Kenny, Roderick Williams, Louise Winter, Ian Partridge, Neil Jenkins, James Gilchrist, Jeremy Huw Williams, Katherine Broderick, Stephan Loges, Stephen Varcoe and Jane Manning, and instrumentalists including violinist Madeleine Mitchell. He has performed at major UK venues including the Wigmore Hall, South Bank Centre, Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Crush Room) and St John Smith Square in London, and St David's Hall in Cardiff. Nigel has given concerts all over Europe; in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, The Netherlands and Greece, as well as in Asia (Japan, Malaysia), New Zealand and the Americas (USA, Colombia). He has broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM in the UK and on French, Welsh and Greek television.

Nigel is the founder, director and pianist of the London Song Festival, an annual event that promotes the song repertoire. Singers who have performed at the Festival include Sergei Leiferkus, Roderick Williams, Louise Winter, James Gilchrist, Stephan Loges, Elizabeth Llewellyn and competition winners including Jonathan Sells (Guildhall Wigmore Recital Prize) and Anna Devin (Maggie Teyte Prize). The 2011 Festival is devoted to English Song and features singers including Roderick Williams, Louise Winter, Marcus Farnsworth (Wigmore Hall International Song Competition and Kathleen Ferrier Song Prize) and Benedict Nelson. Further details may be seen at www.londonsongfestival.org Nigel has given master-classes and led workshops in the song repertoire at summer courses and music programmes all over the UK, in Belgium and Portugal (OperaPlus), in Italy (Asolo Festival) and the USA (Summit City Art Song Festival). In his formative years Nigel played for Graham Johnson's Songmakers' Almanac, the Park Lane Group and several opera companies including Glyndebourne. Nigel has worked with conductors including Sir John Eliot Gardiner, playing for singers including Renee Fleming, Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna. Nigel's musical interests range from the baroque right through to contemporary music, though his main love and passion is the song repertoire. He has given premieres of works by many leading composers including John Metcalf, Alun Hoddinott, Richard Causton, Julian Philips, Edward Rushton and Huw Watkins.

Nigel's CD recordings include several discs of contemporary music and anthologies of songs of Alun Hoddinott and Mansel Thomas with Jeremy Huw Williams for the Sain label and collections of English song with Stephen Varcoe. He features on the soundtrack of the French film 'L'Homme est une Femme comme les Autres'