James Rhodes is the heart and soul of the Don't Stop The Music project. Here are ten facts you should know about the man they call “the pianist with the rock star attitude”.

1. 

James started teaching himself to play the piano when he was just seven years old, after stealing a listen to his dad’s CD of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor Concerto’ and being blown away.

2. 

As a teenager, James entered the BBC Young Musician of the Year contest. It was, he later remembered, a “delightfully enthusiastic yet spectacularly unsuccessful attempt”.

3. 

James worked in the City as a sales director for a financial publishing company for six years before quitting his job to pursue his first love: music.

4. 

A grainy YouTube video of James playing Bach/Marcello’s Adagio, from Concerto No.3 in D minor, BWV 974, has been viewed an amazing 1,228,560 times.

5. 

James has many celebrity followers, including Derren Brown, Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Fry, whom he appeared alongside in ‘A Classical Affair’ at the Barbican Centre.

6. 

James was the first classical pianist to perform at the Roundhouse after it reopened in 2006.

7. 

James’s debut CD, ‘Razor Blades Little Pills and Big Pianos’, went to number one on the iTunes' classical chart. So did albums two and three (‘Will all Freudians please stand aside’ and ‘Bullets & Lullabies’).

8. 

‘Don’t Stop The Music’ isn’t James’s first foray into TV. He’s also appeared on ‘Chopin: The Women Behind The Music’ (BBC), ‘James Rhodes: Piano Man’ (Sky Arts) and ‘Notes from The Inside’ (Channel 4).

9. 

James has taken classical music to many non-traditional venues, including Latitude Festival, 100 Club, Soho Theatre, the Tabernacle and Proud Galleries.

10. 

James has started his own music label, Instrumental Records. Currently he’s the only artist he’s signed, but is planning to add more to the roster in 2015.

Find out more on James Rhodes' website.

Instrument Amnesty