Simon Proctor

Simon Proctor is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music where he gained the GRSM degree and LRAM diploma in piano performance and teaching. He won several prizes for composition, orchestration, and piano including the Eric Coates prize, the Academy’s top award for orchestral composition. As a pianist, he has given recitals in Germany, The Bahamas, and the United States and has appeared many times as a concerto soloist in the United Kingdom and America. 

He has composed a wide variety of music including chamber works, orchestral works, and choral works but with two constants – solo piano works and concertos. Performances of his music have involved the film composer John Williams, The Boston Pops Orchestra, and The English Chamber Orchestra. His Fanfare Jubilo was performed to HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. Proctor’s concerto output exceeds 32 to date and includes examples for historic brass instruments: the serpent, keyed bugle, and ophicleide; most standard orchestral instruments and piano. He has created a new genre called “Fantasia Piano Concertos,” each one an extended virtuosic medley of famous and related themes. These include his James Bond Piano Concerto, Queen Piano Concerto, Frank Sinatra Piano Concerto, Hollywood Piano Concerto, Andrew Lloyd Webber Piano Concerto, Christmas Piano Concerto, and Sound Of Music Piano Concerto. American pianist, Thomas Pandolfi, has given many performances of these concerti. 

Piano music has always been central to Proctor’s musical life. He has written numerous rhapsodies, nocturnes, and sonatas and has also embellished upon conventional ideas such as the dance suite and the etude, creating fresh forms of composition. Proctor is known for idiomatic piano writing and often composes with Tyler Hay in mind. Proctor was Hay’s harmony teacher and a mutual love of virtuoso piano music was realised immediately. The appreciation of advanced piano repertoire and of music in general has led to a long-lasting friendship and Hay has publicly performed many of Proctor’s pieces over the years. Proctor would personally like to thank his sponsors for their support in making the production of this album possible.