Kate Shipway

English pianist Kate Shipway is on the music staff of The Royal Ballet. In addition to playing in rehearsals for the Company she regularly gives solo piano performances in Royal Ballet productions. 

Shipway was born and educated in south-west England. She studied piano at the Birmingham Conservatoire with Frank Wibaut and went on to become a freelance soloist and accompanist, before joining The Royal Ballet School as a rehearsal pianist in 1993. In 1998 she was invited to join the music staff at Birmingham Royal Ballet, where she worked as rehearsal, orchestral and solo pianist for seven years. She returned to The Royal Ballet in September 2005. 

Shipway’s solo performances include Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan, Poulenc’s Double Piano Concerto, Concerto, A Month in the Country, Tetractys – The Art of Fugue, Sensorium, After the Rain and Les Enfants Terribles for The Royal Ballet, Diversions for The Royal Ballet School, Dance House and Brouillard for BRB, Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and Consolations and Liebestraum for New Works in the Linbury, The Royal Ballet.