Danny Driver performs a particularly broad range of solo and chamber repertoire from the baroque to the contemporary, and has attracted attention around the world with acclaimed performances and a series of imaginative recordings on the Hyperion label. His playing has recently been described as ‘Masterly, stylish, and full of dazzling pianism’ (Daily Telegraph), ‘superb’ and ‘riveting’ (New York Times), and as being ‘marked by an exquisitely deft precision’ (International Piano).
Highlights of Danny Driver’s 2010-11 season have included his BBC Proms debut with the BBC Concert Orchestra and conductor Andrew Litton at the Royal Albert Hall, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Orchestra of Opera North and conductor Bramwell Tovey, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at Hong Kong’s City Hall. He has also given concerts at the Wigmore Hall, the Houston International Piano Festival (USA), the English Music Festival (UK), the Husum Festival of Piano Rarities (Germany), the Australian Chamber Music Festival (Townsville, Australia), and at Kings Place (London) in a critically acclaimed two-part Ligeti Piano Music project with projections by the video artist Netia Jones.
As a Hyperion recording artist, Danny Driver has garnered consistent international acclaim for his recordings, including a 2010 Gramophone Award Nomination for his double-disc of York Bowen’s six Piano Sonatas. His subsequent record of C. P. E. Keyboard Sonatas was selected by National Public Radio (USA) as one of the Top Ten Classical CDs of 2010, as well as being singled out by Gramophone Magazine (Editor’s Choice), International Piano Magazine, and the Daily Telegraph (five stars). 2011 saw the release of Balakirev Piano Works (‘Instrumental Choice’ in BBC Music Magazine) and the piano music of Benjamin Dale (Editor’s Choice, Classic FM Magazine).
He has recorded the piano concertos of Scottish composer Erik Chisholm (1904-65) with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Rory Macdonald, a second volume of C. P. E. Bach keyboard works, Schumann’s Novelettes, and the complete piano and violin works of York Bowen with violinist Chloë Hanslip.
Danny Driver appears regularly at the Wigmore Hall and has given several performances at the South Bank Centre, Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall and Symphony Hall in Birmingham. He has performed as soloist and chamber musician at festivals including Bard (New York), Felicja Blumental (Israel), Windsor, Chichester, and Myra Hess Day at London’s National Gallery, and has worked with orchestras including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Tel-Aviv Soloists, the American Symphony Orchestra, and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.