STEPHEN HOUGH – UNITED KINGDOM
In addition to serving on the jury, Stephen Hough has been commissioned to compose a new work for the 2022 Cliburn Competition, to be performed by all 30 competitors. This marks the second time that the composer of the commissioned work will also serve on the jury.
Named by The Economist as one of Twenty Living Polymaths, Stephen Hough combines a distinguished career as a pianist with those of composer, writer, and painter. He was the first classical performer awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the New Year’s Honours 2014.
He is the BBC Philharmonic’s 2021–2022 artist in residence. Other season highlights include orchestra engagements with the Royal Concertgebouw, Tonkunstler Orchestra, and Dallas Symphony; tour of Asia; and recitals at London’s Royal Albert Hall, Estonia National Concert Hall, and in cities across North America. Mr. Hough is a regular guest at festivals such as Salzburg, Mostly Mozart, Edinburgh, La Roque-d’Anthéron, and BBC Proms. In June 2020, he returned to London’s Wigmore Hall to give the UK’s first live classical music concert in a major venue since the nationwide lockdown earlier that year.
Mr. Hough’s extensive discography of over 60 CDs has garnered international awards including the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, several Grammy® nominations, and eight Gramophone Awards. Upcoming releases include Beethoven’s complete piano concertos and Final Piano Pieces of Brahms, both for Hyperion Records. His award-winning iPad app The Liszt Sonata was released by Touch Press in 2013.
As a composer, Mr. Hough has been commissioned by Wigmore Hall, Musée du Louvre, London’s National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi, and the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet. His music is published by Josef Weinberger Ltd.
His first novel, The Final Retreat, released in March 2018, and his Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More was published a year later; he has also written for The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, and the Evening Standard. Mr. Hough is an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple, Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, International Chair of Piano Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, and is on the faculty of The Juilliard School in New York.