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 this year, 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"
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, 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.
Angela Hewitt has performed throughout North America and Europe
as well as in Japan, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Israel,
China, Mexico 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
and Oslo to name but a few. Her Wigmore Hall recitals in London
sell out months in advance.
During the 2005-2006 season her engagements include 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 Malmo, Helsingborg, Calgary, Copenhagen,
and San Francisco. Much in demand for solo recitals, she will perform
the complete Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach in England,
USA, Portugal, and Italy, and appear in the Casals Festival in Puerto
Rico. To celebrate the Mozart anniversary in 2006, she will give
an all-Mozart recital at the Wigmore Hall. As a chamber musician
she will join international artists at Lincoln Center in New York
and in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.
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 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 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.
PHOTO COPYRIGHT : SIMON FOWLER
[reproduced from Angela Hewitt's web site]