[1] Lewis's father worked at the Liverpool Docks and his mother was a local council worker; there were no musicians in his family background.
His teachers included Ryszard Bakst (at Chetham's), Joan Havill (at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama) and Alfred Brendel, whom Lewis acknowledges as a mentor.
[3][6][7] Lewis performed all 32 of the Beethoven piano sonatas, on tour in the United States and Europe, between the 2005 and 2007 seasons, in parallel with his complete recording of the cycle for Harmonia Mundi.
[9] In 2015, he succeeded Fanny Waterman as artistic director of the Leeds International Piano Competition, jointly with conductor Adam Gatehouse.
[12] Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Geoffrey Norris said, "There is in Lewis's playing a strong physicality, a firm connection between his deep thinking about the music and his articulation of it.