Tim Horton is one of the UK’s leading pianists, equally at home in solo and chamber repertoire, and is regularly invited to perform at major festivals and series across the country.
Early in his career, and at the recommendation of the late Alfred Brendel who was indisposed, Tim stood in at short notice to perform Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle, at Symphony Hall, Birmingham and the Royal Festival Hall, London. Further concerto performances followed with orchestras such as the RLPO, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra.
Tim gave his debut solo recital at Wigmore Hall in 2016, since which time he has appeared there regularly as both soloist and collaborative artist, and where he is currently presenting his Chopin Cycle.
Between 2011 and 2015 Tim presented a complete Beethoven Sonata cycle at Sheffield’s Crucible Studio for Music in the Round, who asked him to return for a cycle of Schubert Sonatas 2017-2019, and a Chopin cycle which he concluded in 2024. In parallel with his Chopin Cycle at Wigmore Hall, Tim has also now embarked on his Viennese Schools and Brahms cycle in Sheffield. Early in 2025 he marked the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death by undertaking a two-piano project with Ivana Gavrić. The duo’s next recital, at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, will be recorded by BBC Radio 3 for future broadcast.
Alongside his solo work Tim maintains a busy schedule with the Leonore Piano Trio and Ensemble 360, and is a founding member of both groups.
With the Leonore Piano Trio, Tim has given concerts throughout the UK, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Europe. They have performed a cycle of the complete Beethoven Trios at King’s Place, London and have repeated the cycle on many occasions since then. The Trio has recorded seven discs for Hyperion, including the complete Parry Trios and the Piano Quartet with Rachel Roberts. They have also recorded the complete Piano Trios of David Matthews for Toccata Classics and Huw Watkins’ Piano Trios for Resonus.
With Ensemble 360, a mixed group of strings, wind and piano in residence at the Crucible Studio in Sheffield, Tim has performed to great acclaim throughout the UK and abroad. The Ensemble presents an annual nine-day festival in May, in collaboration with Music in the Round, which they guest-curated in 2025 to mark their twentieth anniversary. The Ensemble has recorded discs of works by Mozart, Beethoven, Spohr and Poulenc, and in 2024 released their critically acclaimed album ‘Pierrot Portraits’ with soprano Claire Booth.
As an extension of their work together in Ensemble 360, Tim co-founded Trio Meister Raro with violist Rachel Roberts and clarinettist Robert Plane. Their repertoire combines acknowledged masterpieces with fascinating curiosities, and their programming has a particular focus on themes of storytelling and fantasy.
Tim has performed regularly at the Aldeburgh, Bath, Elverum, Presteigne, Midsummer Music and North Norfolk festivals. In 2018 he was invited to curate two weekends of concerts at the Plush Festival in Dorset. In the previous two seasons of the same festival Tim worked closely with Oliver Knussen and Sir Harrison Birtwistle.
Tim’s collaborators include many of today’s most respected chamber musicians, ensembles and composers, including the Elias, Vertavo, Heath and Talich Quartets, Paul Lewis, Imogen Cooper, Alasdair Beatson, Bjorg Lewis, Robin Ireland (with whom he has released two discs), Claire Booth, Peter Cropper and Adrian Brendel. He is regularly broadcast by BBC Radio 3.