Wayne Marshall

Wayne Marshall

Wayne Marshall is a name used by two different performers: a Jamaican reggae and dancehall artist, and a British classical pianist, organist and conductor. The Jamaican artist is born Wayne Mitchell and develops as a singer and songwriter in Kingston. The British musician is born in 1961 in Oldham, Lancashire, and works in classical music.

Jamaican reggae and dancehall artist

Wayne Marshall grows up first in the Barbican area of Kingston, Jamaica, before his family moves uptown. He lives close to Lloyd “King Jammy” James, whose Waterhouse studio becomes an important early base for him. Being around King Jammy’s family gives him regular access to the studio environment, where he learns the workings of dancehall at close range and absorbs the culture of the ghetto as part of his musical education.

He starts taking music seriously from an early age and begins copying the style and patterns of Bounty Killer while still at school. He has pre-release Bounty Killer material through his time around King Jammy’s studio and learns the songs quickly. He also begins writing soulful lyrics at 14 and says he has wanted to perform for large crowds since childhood. He presents himself as a singer and lyricist shaped by dancehall’s “dub plate” style and by the influence of Bounty Killer’s approach to lyrics and performance.

Marshall describes his musical tastes as broad, mentioning Sade, Sanchez, Atlantic Starr, Bell Biv DeVoe, Babyface and Beres Hammond among the artists he listens to while growing up. He says music is the only thing that makes him feel happy and that he is drawn to the way musicians hear and feel music differently from ordinary listeners.

British pianist, organist and conductor

Wayne Marshall, born on 13 January 1961 in Oldham, Lancashire, is a British pianist, organist and conductor. He studies at Chetham’s School, Manchester, and at the Royal College of Music. He is known as an interpreter of the music of George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington and other twentieth-century American composers.

He records Gershwin’s complete works for piano and orchestra with the Aalborg Symphony, serving both as conductor and piano soloist. As a pianist, he appears with Kim Criswell, Tasmin Little, Natalie Clein, Ole Edvard Antonsen and Willard White, and he performs with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Philharmonia Orchestra. As an organist, he appears at major venues including Notre Dame in Paris, the Royal Festival Hall, Symphony Hall in Birmingham and Westminster Abbey, and he is organist in residence at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall. He also records Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony and premieres James MacMillan’s organ concerto A Scotch Bestiary with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen.