About this Artist

Pianist Marc-André Hamelin is known worldwide for his unrivalled blend of consummate musicianship and brilliant technique in the great works of the established repertoire, as well as for his intrepid exploration of the rarities of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries – in concert and on disc.

Marc-André Hamelin performed this past summer at the Nohant Chopin Festival, Klavier Festival Ruhr, La Roque d’Anthéron, Montreux, the Minnesota Beethoven Festival, The Edinburgh Festival, and with Yannick Nézet-Séguin at Festival de Lanaudière playing Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 (“The Age of Anxiety”) and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

The current season includes Hamelin’s return to Carnegie Hall for a recital on the Keyboard Virtuoso Series plus recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall and in Montreal, Seattle, Berlin, Florence, Salzburg, Istanbul, among others. In repertoire from Haydn and Mozart to Ravel and Rachmaninoff, Hamelin appears with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles, Stuttgart and Moscow State Philharmonics, the Vancouver, Cincinnati, and Oregon Symphonies, and tours in Europe with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta.

Some highlights of Hamelin’s last season include recitals at Vienna’s Konzerthaus and at the Schubertiade, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, at Yale, Cincinnati and Savannah, Munich, Moscow and Vancouver – as well as his second appearance on the Keyboard Virtuoso Series at Carnegie Hall.

With orchestra, he debuted at the Orchestre de Paris with Alan Gilbert conducting the Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand; played the Schoenberg Concerto with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in the opening weeks of Vladimir Jurowski’s inaugural season, the Ravel Left Hand Concerto with Juanjo Mena and the Toronto Symphony, Ravel’s G-Major Concerto with the St. Louis Symphony and John Storgards, Stravinsky with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot, Haydn with Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra, Mozart with Nicholas McGegan conducting The Cleveland Orchestra, the two Brahms concertos with the Moscow Philharmonic, and the Brahms D-minor concerto with Andrew Manze conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. 

Hamelin was a distinguished member of the jury of the 15th Van Cliburn Competition in 2017 where each of the 30 competitors in the Preliminary Round were required to perform Hamelin’s “Toccata on L’Homme armé” which marked the first time the composer of the commissioned work was also a member of the jury. Although primarily a performer, Hamelin has composed music throughout his career; the majority of his works are published by Edition Peters.

Hamelin records exclusively for Hyperion Records. His most recent releases are a disc of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-Flat Major and Four Impromptus, a landmark disc of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Concerto for Two Pianos with Leif Ove Andsnes, Morton Feldman’s For Bunita Marcus, and Medtner Piano Concerto No. 2 and Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski. His Hyperion discography of over 60 recordings includes concertos and works for solo piano by such composers as Alkan, Godowsky, and Medtner, as well as brilliantly received performances of Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, and Shostakovich.

He was honored with the 2014 ECHO Klassik Instrumentalist of Year (Piano) and Disc of the Year by Diapason Magazine and Classica Magazine for his three-disc set of Busoni (Late Piano Music); and an album of his own compositions, Hamelin: Études, received a 2010 Grammy nomination (his ninth) and a first prize from the German Record Critics’ Association. The Hamelin études are published by Edition Peters.

The artist makes his home in the Boston area with his wife, Cathy Fuller. Born in Montreal, Marc-André Hamelin is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the German Record Critic’s Association. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada.