Jim Aitchison: Piano Quintets

Métier is delighted to present the February 2026 release of two piano quintets from composer Jim Aitchison, both drawing on his unique dual practice as composer and artist, creating music that responds to encounters with powerful works of art by leading visual artists. The collaboration between music, art, and artistry came together as part of a project with the the Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, “Hearing Shadows Wordless Light”.

Both Piano Quintets also grew out of his close collaboration with Peter Sheppard Skærved, Roderick Chadwick, and the Kreutzer Quartet, whose fiercely intelligent commitment, and unique experience of working in visual art contexts have underpinned so much of Aitchison’s work over the past two decades.

Aitchison has always been fascinated with chamber music for piano and strings, inspired by the interplay of texture and timbre, and huge expressive range of the great masterpieces. His own piano quintets are astonishing and unexpected, recreating yet “busting down the walls” of the Germanic canon.

Neither of the quintets attempt to convey, ‘explain’ or illustrate the artworks. “Rather, there is an exploration of territory provoked and revealed in me: I am not responding directly to the artworks themselves but rather to the range of my own reactions emerging from experiencing them.”

Jim Aitchison studied composition at Nottingham University in the early 1990s then in 2000 a move to Cornwall brought a life changing encounter with the artists of the St Ives School and a decades long interest in exploring correspondences between music and art was born.

As a composer, he has worked in response to a range of internationally important visual artists including Gerhard Richter, Antony Gormley, Doris Salcedo, Anthony Caro, Peter Randall-Page, Mark Rothko, Richard Serra, Anish Kapoor, Richard Deacon, Terry Frost, Bridget Riley and John Hoyland, with various galleries such as Tate Modern, Tate St Ives, the RA, The Henry Moore Institute.

This release marks the combined 50th album from Peter Sheppard Skærved and the Kreutzer Quartet on the Divine Art, Metiér, and Athene labels.