Hamish Milne

One of Britain’s leading pianists over several decades, Hamish Milne has appeared as soloist with most of the leading British orchestras and has given over two hundred broadcasts for the BBC. Overseas engagements in recent years have taken him to the USA, the Far East, Africa and several countries of the former Soviet Union as well Western Europe; He is also well known as a chamber musician, formerly with the Parikian/Milne/Fleming Trio and currently with the Pro Arte Piano Quartet and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Ensemble. Additionally, he has collaborated with such musicians as Jiří Bárta, Boris Berezovsky, Martyn Brabbins, Konstantin Lifschitz, Lydia Mordkovich, Kurt Sanderling and many others, appearing in London’s Wigmore Hall and at several major music festivals in the UK and abroad. In the past few seasons he gave concerts in Armenia, Australia, Canada, Czech Republic France, Georgia, Germany , Italy, Japan, South America, and the USA as well as UK venues.   He has recorded for Chandos, CRD, Danacord, Decca and Hyperion labels. He has made a special study of the music of Nikolai Medtner and his recordings for CRD Records initiated in 1975 now run to nine volumes. He has performed the music on four continents and was prominently featured in the Medtner Festivals held in Moscow in 1995, 2006, 2007 and in a similar event in New York in March 2004. There is a discography of more than twenty commercial CDs. Recent releases include Concertos by Holbrooke and Haydn Wood , described in the press as ‘An exemplary release’ (The Gramophone) and ‘Mesmerising’ (Fanfare, USA), Schubert’s ‘Trout Quintet’ with the ASM Chamber Ensemble and the first CD recording of the Russian Anatoly Alexandrov hailed by International Record Review as ‘altogether exceptional playing’. In 2005 an album of Russian Bach transcriptions was awarded the coveted ‘Diapason d’or’ in France. In April 2007, Hyperion released the first ever recording of the Complete Skazki (Tales) by Medtner (2Cds.) which was a Classic FM Gramophone Award Nomination (Instrumental).   As a writer he has published ‘Bartók – his Life and Times’ (Omnibus Press, 1982), and contributed articles on Liszt, Bartók and Hindemith for ‘Heritage of Music’ (Oxford University Press, 1989)   He is a piano professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London and a Professor of the University of London. His inaugural university lecture on ‘Medtner and the Muse’ can be read here.   “Ein Weltklasse-Pianist, der in sich alles vereint, was man von einem Klaviervirtuosen erwartet” (A world class pianist in whom is found everything one looks for in a piano virtuoso.) Dresdner Neueste Nachrichtung