Simon read music at King’s College, Cambridge before studying piano accompaniment with Michael Dussek at the Royal Academy of Music and later with Ruben Lifschitz at the Fondation Royaumont. He is Assistant Head of Keyboard (collaborative piano) and a vocal repertoire coach at the Royal College of Music, London. Since 2003 he has been an official accompanist for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. He has given masterclasses at the Mozarteum, Fondation Royaumont, Samling Institute, Oxford Internationals song and La Chappelle, Belgium.
Performance highlights have included an invitation from the Wigmore Hall, London to present a three concert project on the songs of Joseph Marx; recital tours with Stéphane Degout which have included the Ravinia and Edinburgh Festivals and the opera houses of Bordeaux, Dijon, Geneva, La Monnaie, Lausanne and Lyon; recitals at Carnegie Hall, New York with Karen Cargill and Sally Matthews and at the Frick Collection with Christopher Purves; performances of the Schubert song cycles with Gerald Finley and Mark Padmore including at the Schubertiade, Hohenhems and recitals with Christiane Karg at Frankfurt Opera, Rheingau Fesitval and Schwarzenberg Schubertiade.
He has presented an all-Schubert programme with Ilker Arcayürek in Barcelona, Zürich, New York (Park Armory), San Francisco and at the Wigmore Hall where further appearances have included recitals with Dame Felicity Palmer, Karen Cargill, Sally Matthews and Mark Padmore. With Benjamin Appl he toured to India including recitals in Mumbai and Chennai and gave the opening performance for the highest concert hall in the world in Shenzhen with Aida Garifulina. He recently performed a programme based on Tang Poetry with the bass-baritone ShenYang at the Wigmore Hall and for BBC Radio 3. Future highlights include a return to the Herbst Theatre San Francisco with Ilker Arcayürek, recitals with Masabane Cecilia Rangnawasha, a recital in Santa Fe with Benjamin Appl and the complete Messiaen songs with Gweneth-Ann Rand at the Aldeburgh Festival.
His discography includes a recital disc with Dame Felicity Palmer, two volumes of Debussy Songs and a Strauss disc with Gillian Keith, a disc of French Song and Mahler songs with Karen Cargill, the complete songs of Jonathan Dove with Kitty Whately and a CD of contemporary violin works with Carolin Widmann which received a Diapason d’or. Recent releases include the songs of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with Elizabeth Llewellyn, a CD of Schubert songs with tenor Ilker Arcayürek, a disc of Ballads with Stéphane Degout as well as recital disc ‘Poèmes d’un jour’ which was a Gramophone magazine editor’s choice. Recent CD releases include a “Burnished Gold” fin-de-siécle Viennese songs sung by Robyn Allegra-Parton and a song recital CD with Christopher Purves.
