Angela Hewitt
One of the world’s leading pianists, Angela Hewitt regularly appears in recital and with major orchestras around the world. Admitted into Gramophone’s Hall of Fame in 2015, Hewitt’s performances and recordings of Bach have drawn particular praise, marking her out as one of the composer’s foremost interpreters of our time.
In autumn 2016 Angela Hewitt embarked on a major project entitled ‘The Bach Odyssey’, which comprises all of Bach’s keyboard works in twelve recitals over four years. This season Hewitt continues to present these performances in major cities and venues around the world including London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s 92nd Street Y, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, as well as in Tokyo and Florence. Other recitals this season include Kawasaki, Munich, Warsaw, Serate Musicali Milan, Early Music Vancouver and Yale University’s Horowitz Piano Series, while recent highlights have included Vienna Konzerthaus, Madrid, Singapore, and a tour of Australia with Musica Viva.
In October 2017 Hewitt and the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa, will offer the world premiere performance of Nameless Seas for piano and orchestra, written for her by Matthew Whittall. Hewitt directs the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from the keyboard in concertos by Bach and Mozart in November 2017, while other highlights of Hewitt’s 2017/18 season include Bochumer Symphoniker, Concerto Budapest, and Stuttgarter Kammerorchester at Munich’s Herkulessaal. Recent orchestral appearances include the Baltimore and Winnipeg symphony orchestras, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and an Asian tour with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and the late Sir Neville Marriner.
Hewitt’s award-winning recordings have garnered praise from around the world, and her ten-year project to record Bach’s major keyboard works for Hyperion has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” (The Sunday Times). Hewitt’s second album of Scarlatti Sonatas is scheduled for release in September 2017, while her most recent releases include a new recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, a sixth volume of Beethoven’s sonatas, and Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu.
Born into a musical family, Angela Hewitt began her piano studies aged three, performing in public at four and a year later winning her first scholarship. She studied with Jean-Paul Sévilla and won the 1985 Toronto International Bach Piano Competition. Hewitt was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2006 and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada (CC) in 2015. She lives in London but also has homes in Ottawa and Italy, where she is Artistic Director of the Trasimeno Music Festival.
