Benjamin Frith is a piano faculty member at the Royal Northern College of Music, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the Chetham’s School of Music.

Frith is a British classical pianist and internationally acclaimed winner of the Artur Rubinstein competition. He has appeared with many of the world’s finest orchestras including the Berlin Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Polish National Radio, and the BBC Philharmonic. He has worked with many leading conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Antoni Wit, Vasary, Skrowaczewski, Bamert, Atzman and Barry Wordsworth.

He was educated at the University of Leeds and graduated with a BA in Music in 1979. Subsequently, he studied under Fanny Waterman and won several international competition awards early in his career, including the Gold Medal at the 1989 Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition in Israel and top prize at the Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano. He has since recorded 17 solo discs and performed with many of the great orchestras and conductors. At 20, he became a Mozart Memorial Prize winner and was invited by Sir Peter Pears to appear at the Aldeburgh Festival.

His repertoire ranges from Bach to Tippett and includes over 50 concertos. As an avid and prolific recording artist, he has recorded all the John Field piano concertos (during 2002, numbers 5 & 6 reached the top of the classical charts) and since then has recorded all of Field’s nocturnes for solo piano. His disc of Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze was chosen as the top recommendation on the Radio 3 “Building a Library” programme. Five of his discs are represented in the Gramophone – Best CD Guide and in response to his recording of the Beethoven Diabelli Variations, Gramophone critic Richard Osborne wrote, “he possesses a formidable talent both musically and technically. Indeed, I would go as far as to suggest that there has not been a finer Diabelli on record by a young pianist since the classic recording by the twenty eight year old Stephen Kovacevich in 1968”. A recent recording of a selection of Scarlatti Sonatas was described in the BBC Music Magazine as follows: “Benjamin Frith is an inspired choice for the fifth disc of the Naxos cycle; a compelling advocate of the piano, he transports the music to the new medium, capitalising on the piano’s ability to pick out a strand, shape dynamics and bathe textures in subtle pedalling, without ever misrepresenting Scarlatti – a disc to convert the most die-hard authenticist”. Frith’s recording of CV Stanford’s 2nd Piano Concerto with BBC National Orchestra of Wales was chosen by Gramophone as a ‘Disc of the Year’ and he features with Peter Hill on an anniversary disc of Beethoven’s complete music for 4 hands.

During the latter half of his career there has been a concentration on the chamber repertoire, principally as pianist in the Gould Piano Trio. He has also formed the enterprising Frith Piano Quartet and has been guest pianist in the Nash Ensemble. Recent Concerto appearances include The Emperor with Manchester Camerata at Selby Abbey and Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. This season sees Benjamin partner Heidi Rolfe in a Piano Duo Day at the Wigmore Hall and in 2023 he will make a recital tour of Japan featuring the works of John Field.