Powell was born in
Lancashire in 1969. His family inherited a piano when he was age six. His piano teacher in his late teens was
Denis Matthews. He studied musicology at the
University of Cambridge, graduating with a thesis about
Scriabin's influence on Russian composers. He then studied piano further with
Sulamita Aronovsky. He played UK premieres of works by
Salvatore Sciarrino,
Morton Feldman and
Esa-Pekka Salonen, and commissioned new compositions. He performed works by
Valentyn Silvestrov,
Viktor Ullmann, and
Hans Winterberg. In a 2024 recital he combined works by
Egon Kornauth,
Szymanowski,
Felix Blumenfeld,
Alban Berg,
Jean Sibelius,
Isaac Albéniz and
Josef Suk. Powell was known for his advocacy of the music of
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, which he began performing regularly in the early 2000s. He gave multiple public performances of Sorabji's four-hour
Opus clavicembalisticum (1929–30) and premiered other works by Sorabji, including the substantial
Fourth Piano Sonata (1929) and the five-hour
Piano Symphony No. 6,
Symphonia claviensis (1975–76). Powell gave the world premiere of Sorabji's eight-hour
Sequentia cyclica super "Dies irae" ex Missa pro defunctis (SC, 1948–49) in Glasgow in 2010. In 2020, he released the premiere recording of the work, and was recognised by the
Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik for the second quarter of 2020. Music writer Jed Distler said that Powell's performance has "a level of specificity and tonal application that gives new meaning to the word 'painstaking, "the pianist’s intelligent, fluid pacing and astute scaling of dynamics address Sorabji’s architectural ambitions seriously", making "a compelling and standard-setting case for SC that will be hard to equal, let alone surpass". composer Christian B. Carey wrote that "Powell's dedicated work on behalf of Sorabji makes the composer's legacy seem assured." John Quinn described it as a "technically remarkable, idiomatically perceptive performance" of "a massive work performed with unremittingly massive conviction". His articles were published by ''
, a Finnish musicological journal, and by International Piano
. He contributed to a book about Samuil Feinberg, also a pianist and composer, and was co-editor for Rimsky-Korsakov and his Heritage''. He was a regular guest at
Oxford University to play three concerts a year at the
Jacqueline du Pré Hall, as well as teach and run workshops.
Personal life Powell was married to Irena Powell, also a pianist; they had two sons == Recordings ==