Susan Tomes, piano

About Susan Tomes

Susan Tomes has won numerous international awards as a pianist, both on the concert platform and in the recording studio, including several Gramophone Awards and the 2013 Cobbett Medal. She grew up in Edinburgh and was the first woman to take a degree in music at King’s College, Cambridge. Her career encompasses solo, duo and chamber playing; she has made over fifty CDs and has been at the heart of the internationally admired ensembles Domus, the Gaudier Ensemble and the Florestan Trio with whom she won a Royal Philharmonic Society Award. She has served on international music competition juries in London, Vienna, Munich, Trondheim, Graz, Lyon and Weimar, and will be chairing the jury for the piano trio section of the ARD International Competition in Munich in September 2023. A desire to share her love of music has motivated her to branch out into writing. She is the author of six acclaimed books. The Piano – a History in 100 Pieces (Yale, 2021) was a ‘Book of the Year’ in The Spectator and the Financial Times and won a Presto Music Award. Her seventh book, due out in March 2024, is a history of women playing the piano.