Piano
Collaborative piano
Duncan Appleby’s career as a collaborative pianist encompasses recital and audition accompaniment, playing for ABRSM and Trinity exams, and chamber and orchestral performance. In recent years he has worked with prize-winning tenor Joel Williams and Samling Artist Catriona Hewitson. The lutenist Sam Brown is one of his frequent collaborators, with the two performing Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata in St. James’s Piccadilly, and again in the RCM’s Museum of Instruments. Duncan also enjoys working with several ensembles, especially his horn and violin trio Heitschi Bumbeitschi which performed in Notting Hill’s Piano Trio Festival.
Solo piano
Duncan enjoys solo performances as well as collaborative ones. Before starting his study at the Royal College of Music in 2014, he organised and performed a recital of Liszt’s monumental piano cycle Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses in St. John’s Church in Edinburgh’s West End. In 2015 he performed Finzi’s piano concerto Eclogue with the Edinburgh University String Orchestra in their autumn concert. One of Duncan’s particular interests is bringing undiscovered music to light, which he had the opportunity to do while at the RCM, performing Stanley Bate’s Piano Suite No. 2 in a recital that also included the UK premiere of Lennox Berkeley’s first Violin Sonata.
Artist in residence
Duncan attended a three-week residency entitled ‘Concert in the 21st Century’ at the Banff Centre in Canada In early 2018. With award-winning soprano Ruth Hopkins, he developed a dramatic presentation of a recital programme on mental illness and asylums. They explored using projected footage and lighting to enhance the performance, and look forward to bringing the full show to a location in the UK soon.
He led the keyboard department as Head of Keyboard at an independent school in Surrey and piano teacher , Duncan still finds time for recitals and recordings.
Tenor
Duncan has built a reputation for professional sight-reading and the ability to blend seamlessly with other voices in a choir. He has a long history of singing in Cathedral and chamber choirs, starting in 1997 as a treble in St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh. His most post was tenor lay-clerk at St George’s Cathedral, Southwark. He has taken part in many CD recordings, including performing the tenor solo in Taverner’s God Is With Us in St George’s 2018 Christmas album. He has also contributed to many radio and TV broadcasts of choral evensong and festive services.
Choral conducting
Duncan’s breadth of choral experience leads naturally to choral conducting. With several Assistant MD posts under his belt, he has spent two years as Musical Director of the Guildford Barbershop Harmony Club.
