[7] At the age of 20 he won First Prize in the Newport International Pianoforte Competition,[6] with a performance with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.

Bach's Goldberg Variations, Chopin's "Funeral March" Sonata and Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit, after which recital The Times wrote that Gibbons "could be Britain's answer to Ivo Pogorelić".

[11] For 16 years, from 1990 to 2005, Gibbons gave annual all-Gershwin concerts at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall,[5] with a gap in 2001 following a near-fatal car accident.

[12] Over the 16 years of his Queen Elizabeth Hall all-Gershwin concerts, Gibbons has given the world premieres of at least 48 reconstructed original Gershwin works.

[15] In January 1995, in Oxford, Gibbons became the first pianist ever to perform all 12 of Alkan's Douze Etudes dans les Tons Mineurs, Op.

[20] Gibbons' accident and recovery were the subject of much media attention from newspapers, television and radio, with features in The Sunday Times, Gramophone, BBC etc.

In March 2007 Gibbons gave the first performance at Carnegie Hall of Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the work's publication in Paris in 1857.