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Ian de Massini read Music at the University of Cambridge, having gained a choral scholarship to the choir of King's College Chapel. Upon graduation, Ian was appointed Assistant-Organist for the Church of St Alban, Holborn, in London, followed by a similar position at Ely Cathedral, before then founding his own choir and orchestra, Cambridge Voices, and The Orchestra of the Age of Reason, both about to celebrate their 30th year of concert-making. Ian is now Director of Music for St Columba's Church, Cambridge, and is Senior Member at both Hughes Hall, and at King's College, at the University of Cambridge. For many years Ian was also the musical-arranger, accordionist, and Prima Donna for the iconoclastic classical-music comedy duo, The Classic Buskers, formerly known as The Cambridge Buskers.
In relation to the keyboard, Ian recently made the very first recording of the complete piano works of the great 20th-century French composer, Maurice Duruflé, including his own piano transcriptions of Duruflé’s ravishing orchestral music, whilst his choir, Cambridge Voices, won the Prix d’Or (Gold Medal) from the French classical music magazine, Diapason, for their recordings of Duruflé’s complete works for unaccompanied choir, and Duruflé’s celebrated Requiem, all recorded in Duruflé’s magnificent church of St Etienne-du-Mont, Paris. But it is the championing of Bach’s keyboard works that lies at the heart of Ian de Massini, all of which he plays from memory, alongside the keyboard music of Messiaen, Duruflé, Ravel, and Alain.
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| Ian de Massini |
