| Hangszer | Piano |
“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.
“An instant link from head and heart to fingertips
What draws the listener to Angela Hewitt… has to do with contact. Most piano performances arrive in translation: the inner musician making a decision, then issuing a command that makes its way through the body onto the keyboard and into the ear. The process alters the results. 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. This pianist’s resolve to imbue every musical moment with an unrelenting sense of theater would exhaust most of us in 10 minutes.”
Bernard Holland in The New York Times, February 2007
One of the world’s leading pianists, Angela Hewitt appears in recital and with major orchestras throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia. Her interpretations of Bach have established her as one of the composer’s foremost interpreters of our time.
Angela’s award-winning cycle for Hyperion Records of all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” (The Sunday Times). Her much-awaited recording of Bach’s “Art of Fugue” appeared in 2014, and immediately hit the charts in the UK and USA. Her discography also includes albums of Couperin, Rameau, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Fauré, Debussy, Chabrier, Ravel, and Granados. With conductor Hannu Lintu she has recorded two albums of Mozart Piano Concertos (the most recent one with the National Arts Centre Orchestra won a Juno Award in Canada), the Schumann Piano Concerto with the DSO Berlin, and Messiaen’s “Turangalila Symphony” with the Finnish Radio Symphony. New releases include her first disc of Scarlatti Sonatas, and her sixth volume of Beethoven Sonatas (including “Les Adieux”). Last year Angela was inducted into Gramophone Magazine’s “Hall of Fame” thanks to her popularity with music lovers around the world. Her second recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations will be released on 30 September 2016.
At the invitation of London’s Wigmore Hall, Angela will perform the complete keyboard works of Bach in a series of twelve recitals over four years, beginning in September 2016. “The Bach Odyssey” will also be presented complete in New York (92nd Street Y), Tokyo, and Ottawa. Recitals in the 2016-17 season will take her to such diverse places as Talinn, Tivoli (Copenhagen), Vienna (her solo debut), Madrid, Bilbao, Aldeburgh (Snape Maltings), Rotterdam, Bath, Florence, Singapore, and all over Australia (Musica Viva tour in May 2017). Concerto appearances will include the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa (with Alexander Shelley), the Baltimore Symphony (with Hannu Lintu), the Montreal Symphony (with Kent Nagano), a tour of the UK with the Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra, and with the Lucerne Festival Strings in Munich (conducting from the keyboard). She also continues to perform with authors and actors, most recently with Ian McEwan (in Vienna and New York), Julian Barnes (in Vienna’s Konzerthaus in April 2017) and Roger Allam (at Shakespeare’s Globe in London).
Born into a musical family, Angela began her piano studies aged three, performing in public at four and a year later winning her first scholarship. She then went on to learn with French pianist, Jean-Paul Sévilla. In 1985 she won the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition.
In July 2005, Angela launched the Trasimeno Music Festival in the heart of Umbria near Perugia. An annual event, it draws an international audience to the Castle of the Knights of Malta in Magione, on the shores of Lake Trasimeno. Seven concerts in seven days feature Hewitt as a recitalist, chamber musician, song accompanist, and conductor, working with both established and young artists of her choosing.
Angela Hewitt is an Ambassador for “Orkidstra”– a Sistema-inspired, social development program in Ottawa’s inner city which, through the joy of learning and playing music together, teaches children life-skills such as commitment, teamwork and tolerance. She is also in great demand for masterclasses around the world, generously sharing her knowledge and experience with young pianists.
Named ‘Artist of the Year’ at the 2006 Gramophone Awards, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2006. In 2015 Angela was promoted to a Companion of the Order of Canada. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, has seven honorary doctorates, and is a Visiting Fellow of Peterhouse College in Cambridge.
