Guest Artist Bio

Angela Hewitt

• Performs in Angela Hewitt Plays Mozart:
  Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 7:30 pm
  Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 2 pm
  

At these concerts, the phenomenal Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt returns to the Oregon Symphony for the first time in nine years. Since her last performances with the orchestra – the Bach First Piano Concerto in February 2001 – Hewitt has developed a huge following, in part thanks to her award-winning recordings for Hyperion. Completed in 2005, her 11-year project to record all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described The Sunday Times as “one of the record glories of our age.”

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 and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, as well as a North American tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

In July 2005, Hewitt launched her own Trasimeno Music Festival in the heart of Umbria near Perugia. Now 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.

Born into a musical family (her father was the cathedral organist in Ottawa, Canada) Hewitt began her piano studies at the age of 3, performed in public at 4 and a year later won her first scholarship. During her formative years, she also studied violin, recorder and classical ballet. At 9 she gave her first recital at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, where she later studied. She won First Prize in Italy’s Viotti Competition (1978) and was a top prize-winner in the International Bach competitions of Leipzig and Washington, as well as the Schumann Competition in Zwickau, the Casadesus Competition in Cleveland and the Dino Ciani Competition at La Scala in Milan. In 1985 she won the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition.

Hewitt was named Gramophone Artist of the Year in 2006. 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 Honors in 2006. She has lived in London since 1985 but also has homes in Ottawa and Umbria.

More information online: angelahewitt.com