Founder member of Deep Purple, Jon, born in Leicester, began playing piano aged 6, studying classical music until leaving school at 17 to become a Solicitor’s clerk. He escaped to London in 1961 and spent the next two years at the Central School of Speech & Drama after which he was one of the group of students and tutors who founded the London Drama Centre in 1963. A year later he “found himself in an R and B band” called The Artwoods where he remained until the summer of 1967.

In December of that year, he met guitarist Richie Blackmore and by early 1968 they had together formed Deep Purple. The group’s debut LP “Shades of Deep Purple” generated the American Top 5 smash “Hush”. In 1969 the singer and bass player left and the arrival of new singer Ian Gillan & bassist Roger Glover heralded a more aggressive, heavy approach over the course of several albums, including 1970’s “Deep Purple in Rock” and 1972’s “Machine Head” which include rock staple, “Smoke on the Water”.

During these early years in Deep Purple, Jon wrote several large scale works for orchestra and rock musicians including “Concerto for Group and Orchestra” which was premiered, filmed and recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall with Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Arnold in September of 1969.
This was followed by “The Gemini Suite”, a commission from the BBC, in 1970, recorded with The LSO conducted again by Arnold, and 1974’s “Sarabande” with The Philharmonia Hungarica and Eberhard Schoerner.

After splitting in 1976, Deep Purple reformed in 1984, touring and recording extensively with great success, as indeed they are to this day.

Jon’s solo CD “Pictured Within”, a return to a more piano-based and gentler style, was released to great critical acclaim in 1997.

In September 1999 Deep Purple revisited Jon’s “Concerto for Group and Orchestra” performing it with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Mann at two sold out Royal Albert Hall concerts which were recorded and filmed and released in early 2000 on CD and DVD, going on to sell more than 500,000 copies.

Deep Purple then took Jon’s concerto on tour with an 80-piece orchestra to Europe, South America and Japan playing it more than 40 times

Then this:- ”By 2001, I was beginning to lose sleep, going around and around with the thought that I couldn’t see how to make both things run parallel; that is to stay in Deep Purple and yet have the time to concentrate on and write the kind of music that was more and more in my heart. It was the longest hardest decision of my life, to leave the band I had founded, and loved for nearly 35 years.”

Jon’s last concert with Deep Purple was in October 2002 when he left in order to concentrate on a career as a composer and as a performer of his own music.

Since leaving he has toured with his “Gemini Band” and had a piano concerto called “Boom of The Tingling Strings” (a line from the poem that inspired it, ‘Piano’ by DH Lawrence) performed in Australia & Europe in 2003, then twice in December 2006 and recorded by EMI classics, to be released in ‘07/08. Also recorded was a Suite for string orchestra called “Disguises” which was first performed at the Bergen Music Festival in 2004.

Jon’s latest solo CD “Beyond the Notes” was released at the end of 2004 to further critical acclaim.

He lives near Henley on Thames with his wife and two daughters and is currently working on several projects including another full scale work for orchestra and soloists called “Durham Concerto” (to be recorded in July by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and then premiered in October in Durham Cathedral) and music for his next solo CD and the world tour which will accompany it.