Stephen Ridley: The Life of An Artist

With a quirky stage presence of Robbie Williams and the open vulnerability of Ed Sheeran, pianist and vocalist Stephen Ridley is the next artist to offer us a classically unique performance and song. With a powerful voice and spiritual piano skills, he is one of the most transcendent artists you will hear. You’ll discover your inner self while listening to his music, wondering how he did it. He is just the beginning of an escalating artistic revolution, especially in this time we are living in. 

When people look back on this day and time, I want them to know this- each individual person has found themselves because of what 2020 has inflicted upon us. With Ridley, we find those moments every time he belts a boundless note from his lungs or slams the keys on the piano; the same way we all aggressively type on our laptops when we’re focused and hard at work. He is limitless, and that is recognizable when he stands on the piano bench to play or strikes the fallboard of the piano with his palms to create music from the nonmusical parts of an instrument. I have never seen a single pianist wrap their fingers and hands in athletic tape while they play piano. Ridley reveals that a pianist is more than a musician: they are athletes as well. Whether donating 50% of his money to charity in 2018 or playing piano twenty-four hours straight in an effort to donate to those suffering from cancer (dedicated to his best friend), the artist demonstrates a specific certainty: there are very few things that are timeless, including love and art.  

Ridley was a self-taught musician until the age of eleven. He always played piano, even as the lessons he took began to feel misleading, and eventually a moment came where he put his talent away for four-five years. He claims that he always played piano as a hobby, but never practiced six hours a day like he used to. From that point on, Ridley put away music in order to become one of the most wealthy investment bankers in London. For everyone, it seemed as though he had everything, as though he was happy. Yet, through his abilities to reflect on himself outwardly, he came to the conclusion that he was never happy. With his self-awareness, which to him is one of the keys to success for everyone, he was able to transition his life from an investment banker to a well known independent musician. The moment he quit investment banking, he bought a piano at a local thrift store, placed the piano in the middle of the street, playing for all to hear. From then on, he knew he was meant to follow his dreams as a musician, despite all of his friends and family calling him “crazy” for quitting such a wealthy career to begin a new one. Despite what society says, he shrills the opposite: “the only thing harder than chasing your dreams is not chasing your dreams.” Art evokes, whereas society provokes. 

Ridley’s dad died when he was fifteen, and in every interview he does, he mentions that his dad died full of dreams. So with every cover of a song or original that he sings, he does so knowing that he is chasing his dreams. That’s why he started The Ridley Academy, an online experience that goes against traditional teaching in ways that keep us motivated and passionate with what we are learning. That’s why he risked entering an empty metro station to play “A Song For the World”, a rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine mixed with the Beatles’ Let it Be and Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World, to which never fails to make me weep when I listen to it. That’s why he overcame the obstacle of people telling him to choose a different career path when he discovered he was deaf, which in and of itself reveals the importance of taking a chance as an artist and pursuing your dreams despite what people might say. Stephen Ridley so carefully demonstrates that without art, our emotions would be void. It is only through music that we become alive and spiritually awake. It is through this that we are human, that music is, as Ridley so wonderfully states, “the animating force that gives us life.”