Joe Thompson

Joe is the musical director of London’s world famous Ivy restaurant and club.  He plays piano in the Ivy Club piano bar four or five times a week, including once a week with a jazz trio, to some of the most successful people in the arts and media, including a lot of the artists and composers whose music he is playing. West End performers, ballerinas and opera singers make up the rest of the audience – and often add to the entertainment.

Joe’s classical training opened the door to a number of different piano styles and he is happy to adapt to whatever TV, radio or theatre situation he finds himself in, whether playing solo or preferably collaborating with fellow musicians, singers, actors, directors or writers. Elvis Costello and Diana Krall booked Joe for their wedding, which took place at Elton John’s house, and have called upon him to play since then.

Playing "A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square" at the 606 Club, London.

"A foggy day", also at the 606 Club:

At Pizza Express Dean Street:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged …” that Joe is the man who taught Jane Austen how to play the piano, or rather, Anne Hathaway, who played Jane Austen in the movie “Becoming Jane”.   He taught the stunning multi-talented actress how to play from scratch in just six intensive weeks.  When not coaching other piano players in whatever style they choose, focusing mainly on harmony and how to apply it, Joe works with singers, encouraging them to make the most of what they already have, opening new doors, and exploring new avenues. 

Following a spell in Steven Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music” the remarkable young singer Jessie Buckley spent a year working with Joe exploring jazz and the American songbook, which led to a series of sell-out concerts.

Joe works by commission and specialises in music and dance related paintings. Mayfair’s Westbury Hotel recently commissioned Joe to design and paint a series of menus, in which Joe chose to feature paintings of the hands of their chefs.  His portraits of Elgar and Beethoven were commissioned as biographical book covers and the radio station Classic FM commissioned a Mozart portrait from Joe and X-factor winner and rising star Alexandra Burke commissioned Joe to paint a portrait of her idol, Bob Marley.

London is a highly competitive city brimming with musical talent and so Joe has met a host of first-class musicians along the way.  He is often called on to put together the right players at the right time in the right place, with or without his participation, since on one night Joe can be providing three or four different trios or quartets for the likes of Rolls Royce, Aston Martin and for various Mayfair and Soho venues belonging to Richard Caring. 

Joe's TV work includes collaborations with Paul O'Grady, Sheila Hancock and Sandy Toksvig and a guest appearance on Ireland's Late Late Show.

Joe accompanying Alexandra Burke on MTV Live, 2012:

Accompanying Jessie Buckley on "Have yourself a merry little Christmas time", The Late Late Show, RTE 2011:

Joe has worked as a writer in the past, writing copy and designing poster campaigns for large corporations.  He is currently collaborating with novelist and journalist Jay Rayner on a play with music called “The Devil’s Interval” (working title), in which all of the six actors involved will be called upon to play the piano.  Joe will be composing all of the original music, as well as coaching the actors, as well as providing some of the dialogue.

“Look at it. It’s just so permanent. It’s like a rock and it’s not going anywhere, but it can take you everywhere.  And it’s alive, and it breathes.  It breathes into you and that silence, when it’s not being played, is deafening.

But it is calm and it is calming.  There’s nothing as calm as that piano.

But I’m not talking about that piano, although the two of us have been through a lot over the years.  After all, I can’t carry it around on my back.  I mean just about any piano.  Just being near a piano makes me feel good.  Just knowing there is one in the building.

The smell of an old abandoned piano you just stumbled across. You can feel the weariness as you lift the lid and, when you twang a chord on it, you hear its weaknesses and its strengths.  You hear where it’s going and you hear where it’s been and you wish you could have been a part of it, and you want to be a part of it now so you play it.  You say “Hello”.

Inside a piano is strength and power and tension and metal and guts and wire and wood and hard things.  Eternal things.  Touch the keys and you’re in a gentler, kinder and fairer world.  A world that makes sense.  Stroke a white note (no one ever touches a black note first) and it’s as if you’re disturbing the smoothest surface of the deepest lake and then the ripples begin and it’s alive and so you take a deep breath and you let go of the world and you just dive in and then it’s you and the piano and there’s nothing else.”