Kris Lennox, born in 1982, has been composing since he first sat at the piano, and has always found performance and creativity as two aspects of the one art. Kris says himself: ‘I have always considered self-expression to be equally important as interpretation when at the piano. With interpreting the works of the masters, there is only so much of ourselves we can put into the piece before we risk being disrespectful to the intentions of the composer – hence I always feel the need to compose my own works– only in our own works can we truly express our musical intentions to their fullest’

Kris progressed rapidly at the piano, and by the age of 17, was performing works such as Liszt’s ‘Transcendental Etudes’, Rachmaninoff’s 1 st piano sonata, to the more modern works such as John Adams’ ‘Phrygian Gates’, and Lowell Liebermann’s ‘Gargoyles’. With such ability, he always wondered where the performance of the music of others would ultimately take him: ‘When you eventually reach the stage where you can perform such piano music, then and only then do you ask yourself where it will lead, as before you have the ability play such music, the only goal is to climb ever higher, and conquer more and more difficult works – when this goal is reached, sometimes we sense how detached from the actual communication of an art form, rather than demonstration of technique, that our playing has become. Granted, technique is necessary in order to communicate as effortlessly as possible to the listener our musical intentions, but the technique shouldn’t be an end in itself’.

Kris’ music can be seen as a natural reaction to such a background at the piano – his music is almost ‘anti-technical’; expression is given free reign in the compositions, and technical demonstration is only employed when considered necessary: ‘I always remember hearing piano music before I ever played the piano – even the simplest of pieces sounded horrendously difficult, as they were in a language beyond the understanding of the average listener – what is communicated in a piece is the expression, rather than the technique or harmonic complexity, as all piano music sounds difficult to the non-pianist!! I try to keep this in mind – I write music that I would like to hear, and as such, the result is usually compositions that the general public also like to hear. Then again, sometimes a little showmanship is necessary!! I have shown this in certain sections of my sonata ‘The Craig’, where the music describes a sea storm – as such, it has to be fierce and powerful’.

Kris’ style is somewhat difficult to pinpoint. His music lies somewhere between Romanticism (Chopin/Liszt), Modernism/Minimalism (Einaudi/Nyman/Glass), with a strong ‘movie’ feel (we can hear Barry, Silvestre, Elfman, and Williams in the music), and a little hint of jazz. ‘My music is the natural product of everything I have ever heard before – rather than avoiding certain styles and emphasising others, I let them all speak through my pieces – yet, as with all composers, it has taken me a long time to develop my own ‘voice’, hence I have shied from public performance of my own music in the past’

When asked about musical influences, Kris is typically philosophical in his answer: ‘Anything I have ever heard has influenced my style – even what we would personally consider ‘bad’ music is not necessarily ‘bad’- when you are a composer, there is something to learn in everything – with music we don’t like, we learn more about what we don’t like about certain musical elements, and as a result, we will avoid those things in our own writing. Consequently, we become surer of ourselves through the works of others, regardless of our personal opinions of the works’.

Kris is perhaps more known internationally than he is in the UK, having many private recitals regularly across Europe, and occasionally further afield. This can be seen in the titles to his works – ‘Healdsburg Elegies’ (USA), ‘Manhattan Water Melody’ (USA), Kyoto Nightflower (Japan), (and the forthcoming piece ‘Siberian Butterfly’ (Russia)). Kris tends to shy from public performances, feeling that the intimate nature of a private recital suits his music better, but he would like to add that public performances will become more frequent!! Kris performs regularly in Monaco and France, and spends his time between homes in the UK and Paris.