Music of extraordinary range and power composed at the dawn of the Space Age, Ronald Stevenson’s 'Passacaglia on DSCH' was long claimed as the biggest single stretch of music ever written for piano. It is a veritable world tour of styles as well as a single-minded exploration of its generating motif, and rising star James Willshire, who received five-star acclaim in 2011 for his Delphian debut disc of music by Rory Boyle, has the technique and vaulting ambition to match both the work's grandeur and its immense wealth of detail.

Willshire gave the 1955 'Variations on a Theme of Pizzetti' its belated concert premiere in 2013, and now commits it to disc as one of a number of premiere recordings. The more recent, and equally substantial 'Fugue, Variations and Epilogue on a Theme by Arnold Bax' crystallises Stevenson’s lifelong devotion to a Celtic aesthetic as well as being the foreground for his innovative approach to variation technique. A clutch of shorter works completes the picture, bringing to light some of Stevenson’s less often remarked qualities: charm, exuberance, wit and grace.

In 2000, at the age of 15, James was awarded an Educational Scholarship in the London International Piano Competition, the youngest British pianist to be thus recognised. He has performed at festivals throughout the UK and abroad, including the Lichfield, Cheltenham and Winchester Festivals and many more.