Jazz Piano
John Turville is one of the leading UK pianists of his generation. After a classical education at Cambridge and the Guildhall, he has gone on to an international performing career including recording three albums as a leader; the most recent due for release on Whirlwind Records in 2019, featuring the world-renowned Julian Arguelles on tenor and soprano sax. John has won multiple awards for his two trio albums including MOJO’s #3 Jazz Album of the Year (2012), and ‘Best Album’ in the Parliamentary Awards 2011. John was also a joint winner of the 2009 PRS Promoter’s Choice Award and was awarded ‘Best Instrumentalist' in the 2010 London Jazz Awards as well as reaching the semi-finals in the Martial Solal Jazz Piano Concours in Paris the same year.
John is also an in-demand sideman, and has toured extensively throughout Europe and Asia. He has recorded over 30 albums with many renowned jazz and tango groups, including with Tim Garland’s Acoustic Triangle and Lighthouse Trio, Thomas Gould, the Yuri Goloubev trio, the Tony Kofi/Alan Barnes Quintet, Karios 4tet, Asaf Sirkis Trio, Gilad Atzmon, Transtango, the London Tango Orchestra, El Ultimo Tango, the Matt Ridley Quartet, Sabina Racheyeva, Andre Canniere, Maciek Pysz, Krzysztof Urbanski and Natacha Atlas. He is also known for his work with crossover groups, including regular session and performing work with choral composers Alexander L’Estrange, Will Todd and Paul Mottram, and was a featured soloist in Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert in Lincoln Cathedral, which will be performed again at Coventry and York Cathedrals in 2019.
John co-runs the E17 jazz collective and curates their programme and festival, as well as conducting and composing for the 13-piece E17 Large Ensemble, his tango quintet ‘Almagro Ensemble’ and his sextet ‘Solstice’, featuring Brigitte Beraha and Tori Freestone. Their debut album ‘Alimentation’ was released on Two Rivers Records in 2017, accompanied by a 20-date Arts Council tour, with a second scheduled for release in autumn 2019.
John is an experienced composer and arranger for strings, voices, jazz and tango ensembles. He is also the principal jazz piano tutor at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, the Purcell and Yehudi Menuhin schools as well as at Royal Holloway, and regularly coaches ensembles and leads workshops at the Guildhall and Royal Academy. John has taught and performed at summer schools in Saarwellingen (Germany), the Concertato Masterclass (Capri, Italy) and the Dartington International Summer School, Devon. He is also the external adjudicator in jazz piano at Trinity Laban.
