Melba Recordings

Leslie Howard (Piano)

Concert pianist, composer, conductor, chamber musician and scholar, Leslie Howard has the largest discography of any solo instrumentalist in recorded history, amounting to 130 CDs. His 58-volume, 97-disc survey of the complete piano music of Liszt took 14 years to complete and included more than 300 world premiere performances, earning him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records and a number of international awards.

Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1948, he tours widely and regularly performs with many of the world’s finest orchestras. He has been a soloist with renowned conductors including Claudio Abbado, Adam Fischer, Sir Charles Groves, Vernon Handley, Kurt Sanderling and Sir Charles Mackerras. His chamber music and lieder performances include collaborations with some of the greatest artists of our time, including the Amadeus, Britten and Endellion String Quartets, Salvatore Accardo, Augustin Dumay, Benny Goodman, Steven Isserlis, Sir Thomas Allen, Yvonne Kenny and Dame Felicity Lott. Besides Liszt, he has been responsible for important world premiere recordings of works by Anton Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Percy Grainger, Stravinsky, Granados.

His own compositions include an opera, a ballet and numerous works for orchestra, chorus and soloist. As an arranger, he has written completions for works by Bach, Mozart, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff. He has also written and edited several books on Liszt and is currently preparing a book about the composer for Yale University Press.

Dr. Howard’s recent American master classes have included Juilliard, Manhattan School, Peabody Institute and Boston Conservatory. He frequently serves on juries of international competitions, most recently as Chairman of the Jury for the 2009 Hilton Head Competition and the Liszt Competition in Utrecht.