Robert Atchison was born in London and studied music from a young age.
His teachers included Sheila Nelson, Bronislaw Gimpel at the Royal Northern College of Music and Emmanuel Hurwitz at the Royal Academy of Music. After winning many prizes and competitions he made his London debut in 1983 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall playing the Beethoven concerto and in 1984 at the Barbican with Vivaldi's Four Seasons. He joined the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1984 and remained there until 1990. From 1991 to 1997 he was a member of all three orchestras of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and was co-principal to Iona Brown. In 1993 he was appointed Director of the Spanish Chamber Orchestra, appearing frequently as soloist. Since then he has had a busy chamber and solo career. Mr. Atchison is Violinist with the critically acclaimed London Piano Trio and tours regularly with them throughout the UK and Europe. Plans for 2012 - 13 include a tour of Canada, the United States and the Far East. He is also in demand as a freelance leader in the United Kingdom and Europe. Atchison's recordings are many and varied including the Telemann Twelve Fantasias and the complete Sonatas and Partitas of J. S. Bach. He has made many recordings with the London Piano Trio including the recently released Complete Piano Trios of Armstrong Gibbs and Donald Tovey on the Toccata and Guild Labels. The Tovey trios were nominated for a Grammy award. Other recordings include the complete piano trios of Mendelsshon, Cotter Nixon, and the complete violin and piano works of Armstrong Gibbs. Mr Atchison has a great affinity with lesser known composers and has also recorded the complete chamber works Oleg Komarnitsky. and plans are a foot to record Imogen Holst and David Golightly. Recordings for 2012-13 include two violin and piano recital albums and the two Mendelssohn concertos. Atchison was appointed as the Artistic Director of the new Gibbs Festival at Danbury, Essex 2008 which runs biannually to packed houses. From 2006 - 2009 he was Artistic Director of the International Music Series at the Certosa di Capri, Italy. As a conductor Mr Atchison has conducted many orchestras including the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and the Philippine Philharmonic. He records regularly for many companies and a number of recordings are planned as a conductor over the next three years . He also holds the posts of conductor of the Danbury Festival Orchestra. Mr Atchison has recently worked very closely with Sir Neville Marriner on a number of projects and his own orchestra, the Altamira Chamber Orchestra was launched in the summer of 2009, with whom he recently recorded the Vivaldi Four Seasons with Sir Michael Gambon narrating the sonnets, which has received rave reviews from magazines such as Gramophone.