Sir Stephen Hough is a “keyboard colossus” (The Guardian), “a pianist of great subtlety” (New York Times) who “challenges and deepens our perception of everything he touches” (Classical Source).
At 7 p.m. Feb. 2, Hough will perform a solo recital featuring music of Cécile Chaminade, Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin for the Great Artists Series at Washington University in St. Louis.
Sponsored by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, the series hosts intimate performances with some of the brightest stars in contemporary classical music. Hough’s performance also serves as the department’s annual Carlin Event
The program will open with three works by Chaminade. Born in 1857 in a village outside Paris, Chaminade was widely celebrated during her lifetime, touring extensively and becoming the first female composer to receive France’s Légion d’honneur. But after her death, in 1944, Chaminade’s work largely fell into obscurity.
“I’m frankly astonished that Chaminade’s beautiful pieces are not played more,” Hough wrote in his program notes. “She has the elegance in her piano writing of Saint-Saens and Moszkowski, and all of the pieces I’ve selected these have tunes in them which an audience will leave the hall singing.”
Also on the program will be two monumental works of the piano repertoire: Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor, S. 178 (1852-53) and Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 58 (1844). Rounding out the program will be “Sonatina Nostalgica” (2019), Hough’s first original piano concerto and an homage to the “romantic musical language of yesteryear.”
Sir Stephen Hough
Since taking first prize at the 1983 Naumburg Competition in New York, Hough has appeared with most of the major European, Asian and American orchestras and regularly plays recitals in major halls and concert series around the world. The first classical performer to be awarded a MacArthur fellowship, in 2001, he was awarded Northwestern University’s 2008 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano and the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award in 2010. In 2014, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 2022 was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Hough’s catalogue of more than 60 albums has won the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Diapason d’Or and Monde de la Musique, among other international prizes, and received several Grammy nominations. He has won eight Gramophone Magazine Awards including “Record of the Year” in 1996 and 2003, and the Gramophone “Gold Disc” Award in 2008, which named his complete Saint-Saens Piano Concertos as the best recording of the past 30 years.
Read the full biography.
About the Great Artists Series
WashU’s Great Artists Series hosts intimate recitals with some of the brightest stars on the contemporary concert stage. The series will continue Feb. 16 with celebrated violinist Karen Gomyo, accompanied by pianist Orion Weiss. Grammy Award-winning pianist Yefim Bronfman will return March 2, followed by star tenor Lawrence Brownlee March 23. Vân-Ánh Võ & the Blood Moon Quartet, a chamber ensemble featuring traditional Vietnamese instruments, will conclude the series April 6.
Tickets and related events
Hough’s performance will begin at 7 p.m. Feb. 2 in WashU’s E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall. Tickets are $35-40, or $32-37 for WashU faculty and staff, and $15 for students and children. Tickets are available through the Edison Theatre Box Office, 314-935-6543. For more information, visit music.wustl.edu.
In addition, Hough will lead a piano masterclass at 3 p.m. Feb. 1, also in the E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall. Joining Hough will be WashU students Gus Bachner, Wilson Gao and Sophie Tao. The program will feature works by Beethoven, Szymanowski and Chopin. The class is free and open to the public. Read more information here.
The E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall is located in WashU’s 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave., at the intersection with Delmar Boulevard. The Great Artists Series is made possible with support from the Regional Arts Commission and from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.
