James Rhodes is much more than a pianist. His life's path has made him a unique communicator who mixes wit, irony, and a sense of humour with the great gift of knowledge about classical music and its composers. He has created a revolutionary type of show which moves away from the formalities of traditional classical music concerts and in which each piece performed has a prior narration where he explains why he has selected it, the significance it has for him, and in what context the piece was composed at the time.
James Rhodes has performed around the world in cities such as Chicago, Medellín, New York, Hong Kong, Melbourne, and Vienna. In Spain, he has already done more than 50 concerts with this revolutionary show style and has sold more than 60,000 tickets, doing so not only on traditional stages but also in unique settings such as electronic and pop music festivals.
His life is full of rehearsals and concerts, but also of published books like "Instrumental. A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music," (2015) which has sold more than 150,000 copies in Spain alone. Such was the success of this book that the film company Lionsgate UK bought the rights to the story so it could be adapted to the silver screen. The film will be directed by Oscar winner James Marsh.
With his second book, "How to Play the Piano" (2016), Rhodes teaches his followers to play Bach's Prelude on the piano.
In 2018, he released his seventh album and his third book, "Fugas" ("Leaks"), an international bestseller with which he was invited to participate in such programmes as BBC Hard Talk and CNN's Christiane Amanpour. He ended the year with the release of his first vinyl album, entitled "Fuck Digital".In October 2019, James published his fourth book, "Playlist: The Rebels and Revolutionaries of Sound," which has been sold worldwide and translated into 14 languages.
His latest book, "Made in Spain: cómo un país cambió mi forma de ver la vida" ("Made in Spain: How a Country Changed my Way of Seeing Life"), published in March 2021 by the Plan B publishing house, is a sincere testimony that is sometimes bittersweet and other times full of humour and which reminds us of the power of second chances.
James Rhodes currently lives in Spain, a country he loves deeply. He is a regular contributor to Andreu Buenafuente's programme "Late Motiv" and to Javier del Pino's programme on Cadena Ser radio. In addition, he writes a monthly column for El País Semanal.
Meanwhile, he does not stop in his fervent fight for the improvement of laws that protect children. In Spain, he is an Ambassador for Save The Children and, with them, he has managed to get the government to collaborate to improve obsolete laws, thus positioning Spain as the number one country in child protection.