Stephen Hough

Named by The Economist as one of Twenty Living Polymaths, Sir Stephen Hough combines a distinguished career as a pianist with those of composer and writer. He was the first classical performer to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the New Year Honours 2014, and was awarded a Knighthood for Services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2022.

In the 2021/22 season he will perform with the Concertgebouworkest, Orchestre National de France, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Dallas and Atlanta Symphony orchestras, Dortmunder Philharmoniker and Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich. Hough is the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2021/22 Artist in Residence, while in 2022 he returns to the Far East to perform with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, among others. Recent concerto highlights include the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota and Toronto Symphony, Wiener Symphoniker, Finnish Radio Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic orchestras.

Hough is a regular guest at festivals such as Salzburg, Mostly Mozart, Edinburgh, La Roque-d’Anthéron, Aldeburgh, and the BBC Proms, where he made his 29^th appearance in 2020 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. In June 2020 he returned to Wigmore Hall to give the UK’s first live classical music concert in a major venue since the nationwide lockdown earlier that year. Recital highlights in 2021/22 include a return to London’s Royal Festival Hall as well as Caramoor, Toronto, Tallinn, Gstaad and Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.

Hough’s extensive discography of around 70 CDs has garnered international awards including the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, several Grammy nominations, and eight Gramophone Awards including Record of the Year and the Gold Disc. Recent releases include Beethoven’s complete piano concertos (with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu), ’The Final Piano Pieces’ of Brahms, a Schumann recital, Chopin’s Complete Nocturnes, Brahms Clarinet Sonatas with Michael Collins, and Elgar’s Violin Sonata with Renaud Capuçon (for Warner Classics). His award-winning iPad app The Liszt Sonata was released by Touch Press in 2013.

As a composer Hough’s String Quartet No.1 Les Six Rencontres, commissioned for the Takács Quartet, will receive its world premiere by them in Costa Mesa, California in December 2021 followed by a recording for Hyperion. He has written the commissioned work for the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, to be performed by all 30 competitors in May/June 2022 He has been commissioned by Musée du Louvre, London’s National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, the Genesis Foundation, Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, the Cliburn Foundation, Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi and the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet. His music is published by Josef Weinberger Ltd.

As an author, his collection of essays Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More, published by Faber & Faber in August 2019, won a 2020 Royal Philharmonic Society Award and was named one of Financial Times’ Book of the Year 2019. Hough’s first novel, The Final Retreat, was published by Sylph Editions in March 2018. He has been published by The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian and the Evening Standard. Hough is an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple, an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, a Visiting Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, a Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, the International Chair of Piano Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music (of which he was made a Companion in 2019), and is on the faculty of The Juilliard School in New York.