GRAMOPHONE ARTIST OF THE YEAR 2006


“It was a positive sensation. The Canadian pianist is one of the reliably mesmerising musicians of the day. You sit entranced….it would have been more accurate to say I was floating just below the ceiling. She seems to me the complete performer, gifted not only with fingers that imprint each note with a svelte newness and a mind that is not deflected by such precision work from calmly surmising the larger structure, but also with the ability to convey a spiritual seriousness that nonetheless does not exclude an utter charm.”
Paul Driver writing of her Wigmore Hall recital in September 2003 in The Sunday Times.

"Ms. Hewitt is one of those rare musicians who seem to get something into their heads and hearts and find it at their fingertips instantaneously. To fuel this leap must require a fund of psychic energy beyond the average capacity. Good musicians are good athletes, not in the muscular sense but in the staying power of their imaginations."
Bernard Holland in the New York Times, February 2007


Angela Hewitt is a phenomenal artist who has established herself at the highest level over the last few years not least through her superb, award-winning recordings for Hyperion. Completed in 2005, her eleven-year project to record all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” (The Sunday Times) and has won her a huge following. She has been hailed as “the pre-eminent Bach pianist of our time” (The Guardian) and “nothing less than the pianist who will define Bach performance on the piano for years to come” (Stereophile). She has a vast repertoire ranging from Couperin to the contemporary. Her discography also includes CDs of Granados, Chabrier, Olivier Messiaen, the complete solo works of Ravel, the complete Chopin Nocturnes and Impromptus, and three discs devoted to the music of Couperin. Her recordings of the complete solo keyboard concertos of J.S. Bach with the Australian Chamber Orchestra entered the billboard charts in the U.S.A. only weeks after their release, and were named Record of the Month in Gramophone magazine. Albums already released in 2006-2007 include works by Rameau and Beethoven.

Angela Hewitt has performed throughout North America and Europe as well as in Japan, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Israel, China, Mexico, Turkey and the former Soviet Union. Highlights of recent seasons include her debuts in Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw and with the Cleveland Orchestra, as well as a North American tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Her recitals have taken her to the festivals of Edinburgh, Osaka, Prague, Hong Kong, Schleswig-Holstein, Brescia/Bergamo, and Oslo to name but a few. Her frequent Wigmore Hall recitals in London sell out months in advance, and in 2005 she made two debuts in the Royal Festival Hall: her orchestral debut with the London Philharmonic, and her recital debut in the International Piano Series.

During the 2005-2006 season her engagements included appearances in the Berlin Philharmonie, the Concertgebouw, the Lucerne Piano Festival, the European Music Festival in Stuttgart, the Tonhalle in Zurich, and with orchestras in Malmö, Helsingborg, Calgary, Copenhagen, and San Francisco. Much in demand for solo recitals, she performed the complete Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach in England, USA, Portugal, and Italy, and appeared in the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. To celebrate the Mozart anniversary in 2006, she gave an all-Mozart recital at the Wigmore Hall, and recorded a two-hour special for CBC Radio. As a chamber musician she joined international artists at Lincoln Center in New York and in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, and in July 2006 recorded the Bach Gamba Sonatas with German cellist, Daniel Müller-Schott.

Her 2006-2007 season includes appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, the symphonies of Detroit and Toronto, the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Hallé Orchestra, and the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra. Her recitals will take her to such places as London, New York, Atlanta, Tokyo, Seoul, Warsaw, Moscow, Florence, Rome, Dublin, and Stuttgart.

Future plans include a World Tour in 2007-2008 with performances of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, and the release of a DVD lecture-recital devoted to her interpretation of the music of J.S. Bach.

In July 2005, Angela Hewitt launched her own Trasimeno Music Festival in the heart of Umbria near Perugia. An annual event, it drew an international audience to the Castle of the Knights of Malta in Magione, on the shores of Lake Trasimeno. Six concerts in seven days featured Hewitt as a recitalist, chamber musician, song accompanist, and conductor, working with both established and young artists of her choosing. The next festival will take place from July 7-13, 2007.

Born into a musical family (her father was the Cathedral organist in Ottawa, Canada) Angela Hewitt began her piano studies aged three, performing in public at four and a year later winning her first scholarship. During her formative years, she also studied violin, recorder, and classical ballet. 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, at the University of Ottawa. 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 Schumann Competition in Zwickau, the Casadesus Competition in Cleveland and the Dino Ciani Competition at La Scala, Milan. In 1985 she won the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition.

Angela Hewitt was awarded the first ever BBC Radio 3 Listener’s Award (Royal Philharmonic Society Awards) in 2003. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2006. Also in 2006, she was voted Artist of the Year in the prestigious Gramophone Awards. She has lived in London since 1985 but also has homes in Ottawa, Canada and Umbria, Italy.

Artist website : www.angelahewitt.com