NICOLA LISLE talks to leading concert performer David Owen Norris ahead of his recital in Oxford with Orchestra Europa

It was the Toronto Globe and Mail that called David Owen Norris "quite possibly the most interesting pianist in the world". Throughout a career spanning four decades, he has attracted glowing praise for his thoughtful and imaginative interpretations of music, from both early and modern classical music to jazz.

Press notices are littered with such phrases as "heavenly sounds", "scrupulous sensitivity" and "visionary musical leadership".

All of this bodes well for his forthcoming recital at the Sheldonian Theatre, where he will be performing with Orchestra Europa, the innovative training ensemble launched at the Oxford Playhouse in January.

For David, it is a kind of homecoming; he was organ scholar at Keble College during the 1970s, graduating with a First, and is now an Honorary Fellow. In fact, it was his connection with Keble that led to his association with Orchestra Europa, as conductor Scott Ellaway is also a Keble man.

"It seemed a good thing to encourage," he said. "I like to encourage good endeavours."

Much of his career seems to have been devoted to doing just that.

"I do a lot of educational work with schoolchildren," he said. "I think it's important for them to realise that music is an activity, not just something on a shelf, whether a piece of paper or a CD, but something you can do."

One of David's most recent projects was getting children to sing some of the songs Ralph Vaughan Williams selected for the Songs of Praise hymnbook, published in 1925.

"It was the first book that had Jerusalem and I Vow to Thee, my Country. I've been working on these with children with special needs, and the effect was amazing, revelatory."

David is a founder member of The Works, a performing group that has taken a variety of operatic, choral and instrumental programmes to festivals all over Britain and Europe. The Works now has its own festival, the 7Locks, which has introduced hundreds of schoolchildren to classical music, giving them the opportunity to play early pianos and perform world premieres of recently-discovered early works.

His own musical education started at the age of four, and his life has been completely focused on music ever since. He began his studies in Northampton, before going on to study at Keble College, the Royal Academy of Music and in Paris. Since then he has developed a multi-stranded career as pianist, composer, broadcaster and teacher.

Talking to David, it is obvious that here is a man who is totally driven and committed, who doesn't follow conventional paths but likes to carve his own niche. His own compositions include a radio-opera, Pugwash Walks the Plank, which he describes as "a genre that I've defined for myself - you're not bound by visual logic. One of the characters, Deadeye Dick, disguises himself as being able-bodied - a bit surreal maybe, but in radio you can get away with that sort of thing."

He is working on a piano concerto, to be premiered later this year at the English Music Festival in Dorchester, and is preparing further performances of his oratorio Prayerbook, which was premiered by the Oxford Bach Choir at last year's English Music Festival.

Most musicians acknowledge the influence of other eminent performers during their formative years, but David is different.

"No one, really," was his surprising response when I asked him who had been his inspiration. "I tend just to do my own thing. I was once asked if I was going to be a role model, which I thought was a bit odd. I'm keener that people should seek within themselves to see what they can do. As the world changes, I think role models become irrelevant."

When pressed on the subject of favourite composers, though, he was a little more forthcoming, and admitted to a particular fondness for Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.

"Within 45 minutes Purcell visits everything you can visit - he encompasses love, rage and hate, all with most fantastically apposite music.

"I also like Schubert, Brahms, Britten, Walton and Elgar, and very much admire Mendelssohn, who I think is misunderstood - people think he was an emotional and intellectual lightweight, but he did what he wanted to do."

Beethoven, of course, is also on the list, and David is looking forward to performing the Piano Concerto No.3, notable for being the first of Beethoven's piano concertos to be written in a minor key.

"It's an excellent concerto, obviously, which I'm performing on a modern piano. I'm allowing my mind to play with various interpretative ideas, and the preparation has given me a lot of interest."

David Owen Norris and Orchestra Europa will be at the Sheldonian Theatre on April 25 performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.3, Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture and Haydn's Symphony No.104. Box office: Tickets Oxford on 01865 305305 or www.ticketsoxford.com. For more information on Orchestra Europa, visit www.orchestraeuropa.org, and for David Owen Norris, visit www.davidowennorris.com