Jonathan Powell studied the piano with Denis Matthews and Sulamita Aronovsky and made his London debut at the Southbank Centre at the age of 20. Besides making himself a name as a highly virtuoso and at the same time analytical musician, embracing a wide range of standard, contemporary as well as neglected repertoire, he is a successful composer whose works have been played by the Arditti Quartet, the London Sinfonietta, pianist Nicolas Hodges and others. As a musicologist he researched Scriabin's influence (for his PhD at Cambridge) and contributed various articles to the The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

Powell seeks out extreme challenges and has demonstrated absolute mastery in recitals presenting the most virtuosic and demanding cycles of piano music of the 19th and 20th centuries including Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues, Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus, Albeniz' Iberia, the complete piano works of Xenakis, Stockhausen's Klavierstücke, Sorabji's Sequentia cyclia and Scriabin's complete sonatas.

Recitals have taken him to prestigious concert halls in Europe and the US such as the Wigmore Hall, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Vredenburg Muziekcentrum in Utrecht, the Fundación BBVA series in Bilbao, as well as to many festivals such as the Festival de Radio France in Montpellier, the Raritäten der Klaviermusik im Schloss vor Husum, Heidelberger Frühling, Musica Sacra in Maastricht, Klaver Fest in Tallinna.

Powell's discography includes CDs for the labels Capriccio, Altarus, Largo, Toccata, ASV, Danacord, Piano Classics and CPO, featuring works by Alexander Goldenweiser, Joseph Marx, Alexander Krein, Konstantin Eiges, Hans Winterberg, and Franz Xaver Scharwenka. His recording of Sorabji's Sequentia cyclia on seven discs was awarded the German Record Critics' Award.

He has lectured on a great variety of subjects and given masterclasses at Oxford University, The Royal Academy of Music, Tallinn Academy of Music, The Vītols Academy in Riga, the Musikhochschule Darmstadt, JAMU in Brno, HAMU in Prague, Bristol University, Szymanowski Academy in Katowice etc.

Jonathan Powell has become the world's leading advocate of Hans Winterberg's piano music, having played all 5 piano sonatas and many of the composer's piano pieces live in concert and in the studio. In 2020 he made the first ever recording of Winterberg's 1st piano concerto (for the Capriccio label); this will be followed by recordings of the 2nd and 3rd piano concertos in 2025/26.

Photo: (c) eda records