Born in Edinburgh, Professor Christopher Elton received most of his musical education at the Royal Academy of Music, where he achieved the unusual distinction of gaining the Academy’s highest performing award — the DipRAM — on both piano and cello. He was elected a Fellow in 1983. In 2002, he received the title of Professor of the University of London.
Christopher was a prize winner in several British and international piano competitions and continued his studies with Maria Curcio-Diamand, playing and broadcasting regularly both as a soloist and in chamber music. At the same time he worked as a freelance cellist with the major London orchestras.
While his priority is to his work at the Royal Academy where he was Head of Piano for 24 years and is now Professor Emeritus, Christopher has also been much in demand overseas both as a teacher and as a jury member for international competitions including Moscow Tchaikovsky, Leeds International and many others.
Within the last few years he has given masterclasses in the USA, Japan, Israel, Korea, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Spain, Germany and Ireland and Vietnam, many of them for important conservatories or universities. He has also been a jury member at competitions in Germany, Japan, Romania and Ireland as well as in the UK. As an adjudicator he has worked both in festivals and on television in the UK, Canada and Hong Kong.
