Angela Hewitt

The Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt comes from a musical family. Her father was the cathedral organist in Ottawa. At the age of three she began learning piano, and when she was nine she gave her first recital at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where she continued her training. Jean-Paul Sévilla was a formative influence during her studies at the University of Ottawa. Hewitt won the Concorso Gian Battista Viotti in 1978 and, in 1985, the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition. Not surprisingly, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach lies at the center of her repertoire: she has recorded all of his works for the keyboard. But she is also at home in later eras and is currently working on a complete recording of all 32 of the Beethoven sonatas. Hewitt has partnered with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. For some time she has herself been taking over musical direction of her concerts from the keyboard, for example with the Camerata Salzburg, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. In the 2015-16 season she will undertake an Asian tour with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields as well as give recitals in London, New York, Ghent, and Ottawa; together with the author Ian McEwan she will perform an evening at the Konzert-haus in Vienna, and with Julian Barnes she will appear at the Barbican Centre. Hewitt won the Gramophone Award as Artist of the Year in 2006; in 2010 she received the MIDEM Classical Award as Instrumentalist of the Year. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada and Member of the Order of the British Empire. Angela Hewitt lives in London, Canada, and Umbria, where she leads the Trasimeno Music Festival.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 26 November 2005 playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

November 2015