Helen Cawthorne

Helen's own playing career has been, first and foremost, as an accompanist and collaborative pianist. She studied at the Academy with Alexander Kelly, Rex Stephens and Jeremy Brown, winning major prizes as an accompanist, ensemble musician and solo pianist.

Growing from her reputation for quick reading and an enthusiasm for tackling the most complex scores, an intense period of freelance work in London followed, which included regular engagements as rehearsal and audition accompanist at all the conservatoires and for many of the leading London orchestras, choruses and opera companies.

Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room débuts also came early in her career, and she has returned many times to the Southbank Centre, most recently with the eight-hand piano ensemble Piano40, in their tenth appearance there.

On the concert stage and in broadcasts, a special interest in working with singers and string players in the Romantic repertoire has been complemented by premières of over thirty newly commissioned works.

Helen's most recent recording, a disc of solo piano works by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel entitled A Woman's Hand, was released by Prima Facie Records in 2022 and described by MusicWeb International as 'a voyage of delight from end to end'.

In addition to her teaching at the Academy, Helen is a Lecturer in Performance at the University of Southampton, where she works with both undergraduate and postgraduate students of piano, the majority of whom continue into the profession themselves as either performers or teachers. Helen also travels worldwide as an examiner, adjudicator and presenter of teachers' seminars.