Stephen Hough

Description

**Stephen Hough** Stephen Hough is a Renaissance man, not only as a true polymath, but as a master in the achievements of that period. Mr. Hough combines his career as a uniquely insightful concert pianist, writer, and composer with philosophic pursuits which have earned him a multitude of prestigious awards and a long-standing international following. In 2001, Mr. Hough was the first classical performing artist to win a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. He was awarded Northwestern University’s 2008 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano, won the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award in 2010, and in January of 2014 was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth in the New Year’s Honors List. He has appeared with most of the major European and American orchestras, and plays recitals regularly in major halls and concert series around the world. His recent engagements include recitals in Chicago, Hong Kong, London, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Paris, Boston, San Francisco, the Kennedy Center and Sydney; performances with the Czech, London and New York Philharmonics; the Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis, National, Detroit, Dallas, Atlanta and Toronto symphonies; the Philadelphia, Minnesota, Budapest Festival and Russian National Orchestras; and a performance televised worldwide with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. He is a regular guest at festivals such as Aldeburgh, Aspen, Blossom, Edinburgh, Hollywood Bowl, Mostly Mozart, Salzburg, Tanglewood, Verbier, Chicago’s Grant Park, Blossom, and the BBC Proms, where he has made over 20 concerto appearances, including playing all of the works of Tchaikovsky for piano and orchestra over the summer of 2009, a series he later repeated with the Chicago Symphony. Mr. Hough’s 2015/16 season begins with complete Beethoven cycles in Australia and Singapore, followed by recitals in Beijing, Taipei and Tokyo. The season continues with return appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco, Montreal, Houston, Vancouver and New Jersey symphonies, among others in North America, as well as re-engagements with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Europe; and recitals at New York’s 92nd Street Y, London’s Barbican Centre, and in Quebec, Kansas City, and at Dartmouth and Northwestern University. Mr. Hough has a catalogue of over 50 albums, many of which have garnered international prizes including the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, the Diapason d’Or, the Monde de la Musique, several Grammy nominations, eight Gramophone Magazine Awards including ‘Record of the Year’ in 1996 and 2003, and the Gramophone ‘Gold Disc’ Award in 2008, which named his complete Saint-Saens Piano Concertos as the best recording of the past 30 years. His 2012 recording of the complete Chopin Waltzes received the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, France’s most prestigious recording award. His 2005 live recording of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos was the fastest selling recording in Hyperion’s history, while his 1987 recording of the Hummel concertos remains Chandos’ best-selling disc to date. Mr. Hough’s most recent releases, all for Hyperion, include the two Brahms Piano Concertos with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra under Mark Wigglesworth; “In the Night,” featuring Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Schumann’s Carnaval, and Mr. Hough’s Second Piano Sonata, notturno luminoso. Further recent recordings include Grieg: Lyric Pieces; and a recording of Mr. Hough’s mass, Missa Mirabilis, with the Colorado Symphony. Mr. Hough is also the featured artist in an iPad app about the Liszt Piano Sonata, which includes a fully-filmed performance and was released by the cutting-edge, award-winning company Touch Press. Published by Josef Weinberger, Mr. Hough has composed works for orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble and solo piano. His Mass of Innocence and Experience and Missa Mirabilis were respectively commissioned by and performed at London’s Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral. In 2012, the Indianapolis Symphony commissioned and performed Mr. Hough’s own orchestration of Missa Mirabilis, which was subsequently performed by the BBC Symphony as part of Mr. Hough’s residency with the orchestra. Mr. Hough has also been commissioned by the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic, London’s National Gallery, Wigmore Hall, Le Musée de Louvre and Musica Viva Australia among others. He has performed his two piano sonatas, Sonata No. 1, broken branches, and Sonata No. 2 notturno luminoso, in recital programs in London, New York, St. Paul and Chicago. A noted writer, Mr. Hough regularly contributes articles for The Guardian, The Times, The Tablet, Gramophone, and BBC Music Magazine, and was invited by The Telegraph in London in 2008 to start a blog that has become one of the most popular and influential forums for cultural discussion. His book, The Bible as Prayer, was published by Continuum and the Paulist Press in 2007. Mr. Hough resides in London where he is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music and holds the International Chair of Piano Studies at his alma mater, the Royal Northern College in Manchester. He is also a member of the faculty at The Juilliard School. To find out more about Mr. Hough, please visit his website www.stephenhough.com or his Facebook fan page.

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