Leon’s performance of Ravel’s Oiseaux Tristes on July 19th was Suzy Klein’s Highlight of the Week on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune. He was interviewed on the programme in advance of his upcoming UK summer festival performances at Ribble Valley International Piano Week, Petworth, Manchester, Belfast and Machynlleth. Click here to listen to the performance.

Leon’s recently released disc of Haydn’s Sonatas and Variations on SOMM has been awarded a Diapason d’Or in the July 2017 edition of French magazine Diapason. Reviewer Gaëtan Naulleau praises him highly: “What a range in his interpretation and how many layers of gradation! This is true of the whole album. Here and elsewhere one finds the eloquence of a neat punctuation which set it apart, which leaves some air between two notes or two ideas; McCawley ties these together, in a special quality of inflexions which make their point with great intelligibility and sensitivity. He moves towards us like a visitor, a feeling which the sound engineer has interpreted with care”. Also: “And his natural phrasing allows him to play, while observing each repeat, the Variations in F minor lasting about fifteen minutes, which become under his hands of a sculptor, a sort of string quartet for the piano”.

Leon was also awarded a Diapason d’Or back in 2006 for his recording of The Complete Mozart Sonatas on Avie Records.