Angela Hewitt has established herself at the highest level not least through her superb, award-winning recordings for Hyperion.
Her ten year project to record all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” and has won her a huge following. She has been hailed as “the pre-eminent Bach pianist of our time” (The Guardian) and “the pianist who will define Bach performance on the piano for years to come” (Stereophile). Her discography includes CDs of Beethoven, Schumann, Messiaen, Ravel, Chopin, Couperin, Rameau and Chabrier.
Highlights of recent seasons for Angela Hewitt include debuts in Carnegie Hall and the Concertgebouw, while orchestral engagements have included performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Toronto Symphony, London Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony and the orchestra of the Salzburg Mozarteum. Her recitals have taken her to the Lucerne Piano Festival as well as to the festivals of Edinburgh, Prague, Osaka, Hong Kong, Schleswig-Holstein and Oslo to name but a few. She regularly gives recitals in London’s Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall.
Angela Hewitt’s 2007/8 season was dedicated to a world tour performing Bach’s complete Well-Tempered Clavier across two recitals. This included performances in the Royal Festival Hall, Zurich Tonhalle, Cologne Philharmonie, Venice La Fenice, Carnegie Hall New York and in Oslo, Rotterdam, Warsaw, Dublin, Lisbon, Bilbao, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Melbourne, Sydney and many other major cities worldwide. In 2008/9 Hewitt gives recitals in the Berlin Philharmonie, Lucerne KKL and Munich Herkulessaal, and performs concerti with the NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
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. At nine she gave her first recital at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music where she later studied. She then went on to learn with French pianist Jean-Paul Sévilla. She won First Prize in Italy’s Viotti Competition (1978) and was a top prizewinner in the International Bach competitions of Leipzig and Washington D.C. as well as the Dino Ciani Competition at La Scala, Milan. In 1985 she won the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition.
Angela Hewitt was named ‘Artist of the Year’ in the 2006 Gramophone Awards. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000, and was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2006. She has homes in London, Canada and Umbria, Italy, where she invites international musicians each summer to take part in her own Trasimeno Music Festival. Further information on this festival and Hewitt’s performances can be found at www.angelahewitt.com.
Angela Hewitt is represented by Intermusica.
Nov 2008 / 449 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.