Canadian Music Competitions of British Columbia Society

2005 Fundraising Dinner

Sunday, April 17th, 2005

Special Guest: Angela Hewitt

Biography

 

Phenomenal pianist Angela Hewitt has established herself at the highest level over the last few years 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). She has a vast repertoire ranging from Couperin to the contemporary. Her discography also includes CDs of Granados, Olivier Messiaen, the complete solo works of Ravel, and most recently the complete Chopin Nocturnes.

 
Angela Hewitt has performed throughout North America, Europe, as well as Japan, Australia, China, Mexico and Russia. Last season she gave four concerts in major London halls, three in the Wigmore Hall and one in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, all of which sold out months in advance.  She also performed recitals for the Serate Musicali in Milan, in Tokyo and for the Hong Kong, Gilmore and Kuhmo Festivals, and with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony.  This season, she performs with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Detroit, Montreal, Colorado, Vancouver, Memphis, Nashville, and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony, tours and records with the Australian Chamber Orchestra; and performs recitals in Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, in Edinburgh, and Lisbon, and at the Osaka, Prague and Ansbach Festivals.

 
Born into a musical family (her father was the Cathedral organist in Ottawa, Canada), Miss Hewitt began her piano studies at the age of three, performing in public at four, and a year later winning her first scholarship.  In her formative years, she also studied violin, recorder, singing, 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 study with French pianist Jean-Paul Sevilla, 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 also made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000. She has lived in London since 1985 but also has homes in Canada and Umbria, Italy.

 

Biography sources:

Cramer/Marder Artists: www.cramermarderartists.com/hewitt.htm

Hyperion Records: www.hyperion-records.co.uk/artist_page.asp?name=hewitt