Marc-André Hamelin Marc-André Hamelin is internationally renowned for his musical virtuosity and refined pianism. Perhaps best recognized for his attention to lesser-known composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, he is equally at home with the standard repertoire. His 2004/05 season begins with appearances at a variety of summer festivals including Santa Fe, Ravinia, Scotia, Schwetzingen, and the Weimar Lizst Festival. He presents recitals at the Ottawa Chamber Music Society, Texas Conservatory for Young Artists at Plano, and enjoys a return visit to the Mannes College of Music's International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York. Other recital performances include those in Rome, Paris, Milan, Edinburgh, the University of Washington in Seattle, Cornell University, Lafayette College, Tallahassee, Oklahoma City, and his return to San Francisco Performances, the second in his three-year series of annual concerts there. His orchestral engagements include the season opening concerts playing Rachmaninoff No. 2 with the Montréal Symphony and Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, the Grieg Concerto with the London Philharmonic, Brahms No. 2 in Lahti, the Gershwin Concerto in F with Leonard Slatkin and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic at the Concertgebuow, and a European tour playing Saint-Saens Concerto No. 2 and Mozart k. 595 with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. The 2003/04 season began with appearances with the Montréal Symphony and Jacques Lacombe for Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Lanaudiere Festival; Rachmaninoff No. 2 with the Detroit Symphony; and recitals at International Piano Festival at Mannes College, and in Quebec, Toronto, and Ottawa. Mr. Hamelin also presented recitals in Boston, Buffalo, San Francisco, Vancouver, Montréal, Seoul, Oslo, Helsinki, at Middlebury College, and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He performed the complete Iberia cycle of Isaac Albeniz in Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, the Miller Theater in New York, and London's Wigmore Hall. Orchestral engagements included the symphony orchestras of Montréal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, as well as the Bournemouth Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Tokyo Philharmonic and the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and a return to the Montreal Symphony later in the season for Rachmanioff No. 3. Following summer festivals at Lanaudiére, La Roque d'Anthéron and Italy's Busoni Festival where he played the epic Busoni Concerto with Mark Elder and the CBSO, the 2002/03 season saw Mr. Hamelin performing in leading American and European cultural centers. His recital tours included London, Vienna, Amsterdam, Munich, Moscow, Philadelphia, Montréal and Toronto. His orchestral engagements included Dallas, Vancouver, Montréal, National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and the Swedish Radio Orchestra. In spring 2003 Swedish Television aired a program devoted entirely to Mr. Hamelin, an accolade rarely given to a foreign artist. Following the success of his June 1994 Wigmore Hall series called "Virtuoso Romantics," Mr. Hamelin was invited to give recitals on the Hall's Masterconcert Series and on the International Piano Series at the South Bank. In 1999 he returned to Wigmore Hall for a three-part series called "Exploration & Celebration," and a year later Blackheath Halls presented a weekend of "Marc-André Hamelin & Friends." In November 2000 he gave a recital at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, and in early 2001 returned to New York to take part in the Liszt Series at the 92nd Street Y. Later in 2001 he played the Busoni Concerto with the Lahti Symphony, L'Orchéstre de la Suisse Romande, and the Tokyo Philharmonic. He has also given a series of six recitals in Tokyo entitled '200 Years of Pianism with Marc-André Hamelin'. Well established worldwide and commanding a strong international following, Mr. Hamelin's numerous festival appearances include Ravinia, the Ruhr Piano Festival, Mexico's Cervantino, Reykjavik Arts Festival, Singapore International Piano Festival, Snape Maltings, and the BBC Proms in London. He has toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and appeared with many of the world's leading orchestras including Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Helsinki, Philadelphia, the BBC Symphony, and the Royal Concertgebouw. The 2004/05 season sees the release by Hyperion records of Mr. Hamelin's recording of all four books of Albeniz's "Iberia" in a 1998 "urtext" edition based on the composer's manuscript, which is scattered among four libraries in Spain and the U.S. This will follow upon the pianist's recent releases of the piano music of Nikolai Kapustin, piano concertos by Shostakovich and Rodion Schedrin, and Ives's "Concord" Sonata ‘ all for the Hyperion label. Marc-André Hamelin's interest in exploring both traditional and little-known repertoire is reflected in the extensive discography he has produced under exclusive contract with Hyperion. His thirty-six recordings include concertos by Alkan, Bernstein, Bolcom, Henselt, Korngold and Joseph Marx, as well as solo discs of Alkan (Canadian Juno Award 1996), Catoire, Grainger (Soundscapes Award 1997, Australia), Liszt, Reger, Roslavets, Rzewski, Schumann, Villa Lobos, "The Composer-Pianists: From Alkan to Hamelin" (Deutschen Schallplattenkritik Prize in 1997 & 1998), and the complete sonatas of Medtner and Scriabin. His recording of the Busoni Concerto with the CBSO under Mark Elder received resounding critical acclaim, while the double album of the complete Chopin-Godowsky Studies won the 2000 Gramophone Instrumental Award. After receiving a double nomination for the Busoni concerto and the Chopin-Godowsky Studies, he was the only classical artist to play live at the 2001 Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. He received another Grammy nomination in 2002 for his recording featuring the works of Alkan. Winner of the 1985 Carnegie Hall Competition, Marc-André Hamelin was born in Montréal. He began his piano studies at the age of five and was nine years old when he won the top prize in the Canadian Music Competition. His father, a pharmacist by trade who was also a keen pianist, had introduced him to the works of Alkan, Medtner and Sorabji when he was still very young. His principal teachers were Yvonne Hubert, Harvey Wedeen and Russell Sherman; he studied at the Ecole Vincent d'Indy in Montréal and then at Temple University in Philadelphia where he now makes his home. Mr. Hamelin is featured in The Composer-Pianists: Hamelin and the Eight by Robert Rimm, published by Amadeus Press.