Biography 2025 – short

Nicholas Ashton was born in Preston, Lancashire and educated at Chetham’s School, the Royal Northern College of Music, on postgraduate scholarships in Geneva and Frankfurt-am-Main and at the University of Edinburgh.

His two principal teachers were Renna Kellaway and Joachim Volkmann and he received inspirational coaching from Murray Perahia and Menahem Pressler.

Following a debut at the 1980 Manchester International Festival in the city’s Free Trade Hall, Nicholas performed intensively as a soloist during his undergraduate and postgraduate studies, building an extensive repertoire.

Nicholas has performed widely as both soloist and chamber musician thoughout the UK, Germany, the USA, Lithuania, Finland and Italy at series and festivals, including at the Hamburger Chamber Arts Association, Paxton House Summer Music, the Amici della musica in Udine, the Edinburgh and Salford Sonic Fusion and Glasgow Sound Thought Festivals, the Obertoene Festival and the Halle 424 concert series in Hamburg, the Cantilena Chamber Music Festival and the Lake District Summer Music Festival. He has also contributed many times as a performer and in interview for BBC Radio 3 and 4, BBC Radio Scotland and in Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, Lithuania and the USA.

A première recording of the complete works for solo piano and the piano quintet by the distinguished Scottish composer Robert Crawford, was released on the Delphian Records label in February 2008. This recording attracted very high praise in the media, including International Record Review, The Scotsman, The Herald, Musical Opinion and The Gramophone.

Nicholas currently works with the distingushed pianist Lithuanian pianist Lauryna Sableviciute in a piano duo entitled Re: Sono, specialising in contemporary two-piano repertoire. They have performed numerous works by contemporary composers and have been commissioned to perform premiere works and received dedications.

Nicholas and the Edinburgh Quartet worked together for over ten years, performing much of the piano quintet repertoire. They recorded the Robert Crawford piano quintet in 2007 – a premiere recording for Delphian Records.

Nicholas recently performed two series of carefully curated, themed programmes, the first of which, entitled Wasserklavier (2017-2019), centred around concrete and abstract evocations of water. The second themed programme, entitled Birds and Landscapes (2019-2022), explored these subjects.

Since September 2020, Nicholas has been Principal Senior Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and at the University of Edinburgh, also maintaining a private teaching practice.

Nicholas is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy/Advance HE (2018) and was a Teaching Fellow at Edinburgh Napier University from 2018-20. For 29 years (1991-2000), Nicholas was a full-time Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at Edinburgh Napier.