Tim Richards
Biography
Pianist and composer Tim Richards is best known as the leader of the modern jazz group Spirit Level founded in Bristol in 1979. During its twenty year existence this band toured throughout Europe, released seven albums, and recorded broadcasts for BBC Radio, Radio France and WDR Köln among others. After being nominated Best Small Group in the 1995 British Jazz Awards, the band was enlarged to a nine-piece band and renamed Great Spirit. This band toured the UK with Arts Council support in 1999 and 2001, playing Tim's Yorkshire Arts commission Suite for the Shed. Many of London's best jazz musicians have appeared or recorded with the band, including saxophonists Pete King, Gilad Atzmon, Denys Baptiste, Ed Jones, Jason Yarde and Tony Kofi.
Tim has many years of experience teaching jazz, from private piano lessons to workshops for all instruments, at all levels from beginners to advanced. His blues piano tutor Improvising Blues Piano was published by Schott in 1997 and has been widely acclaimed. He also has two pieces in the jazz piano syllabus published by the Associated Board, for whom he is a jazz examiner, and six pieces in the new Rockschool Popular Piano series. Currently teaching jazz piano, blues piano and improvisation evening classes at London's Goldsmiths and Morley colleges, Tim is also course director for the annual Premises Jazz Piano Week in Hackney, London and a participating tutor on the European Piano Teachers Association Piano Pedagogy course. He is currently working on his second book, Exploring Jazz Piano, to be published in 2005.
www.timrichards.ndo.co.uk