Anthony Hewitt
Award-winning British pianist Anthony Hewitt is well-known and respected as a musician of integrity, and a pianist of versatility and virtuosity. His performances and recordings have been met with critical acclaim (“a remarkably gifted artist”, The Gramophone), and his unique projects have captured the imagination and admiration of the public.
Anthony has performed internationally with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C, with with orchestras in Germany, Poland, and Russia, and with many of the UK’s leading orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic, English Chamber, Orchestra of the Swan, Manchester Camerata and Royal Northern Sinfonia. Venues in the UK include London’s Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room, Symphony Hall in Birmingham, and no less than eight recitals at Wigmore Hall.
His discography includes ‘Protégé’ (Divine Art Records) - the first coupling on disc of the Liszt and Reubke Sonatas - which was praised in International Record Review as "magisterial", and received a Gramophone recommendation. His debut CD Live at Wigmore Hall was described in BBC Music Magazine as “displaying a fine communicative and poetic musicianship". His 2015 recording of the complete Preludes of Alexander Skryabin won him plaudits from the press, including from the Guardian which praised it for its “command and understanding”. Most recently his 2022 recording on Naxos of Bowen viola and piano works with violist Yue Yu was rated as being equal to the finest in the catalogue.
He has formed many regular chamber music partnerships including a duo with cellist Thomas Carroll, Dimension Piano Trio, and a two piano duo with Japanese pianist Miki Yumihari. Other collaborations include with Emma Johnson, Jess Gillam, Chloe Hanslip, Martin Roscoe, Jess Dandy, and Daniel Rowland.
In 2004, Anthony founded the Ulverston International Music Festival with the aim of bringing internationally renowned artists and high quality artists and groups to a rural part of England alongside educational work in the community.
He continues to enjoy a diverse musical life as a solo pianist, festival director, professor of piano at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, collaborative chamber musician, jury panelist, and is a frequent visitor to the Far East where he is held in high regard for his engaging master classes for young pianists. He performs and teaches young musicians annually at festivals in Holland, Italy and France.
By far his most unique ‘feet’ to date was under the guise of the ‘Olympianist’, where he cycled 1200 miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats with a piano in his ‘BeethoVan’ and gave a full-length recital at the end of each day. He performed over thirty engagements in total and raised £13,000 for charity. In 2017 he cycled overnight from London to Birmingham Town Hall to perform Ravel’s ‘Gaspard de la Nuit’ at 6am - fiendishly difficult to play at the best of times!
Most recently Anthony organised and presented a series of eighteen online piano recitals from St. Mary’s Barrow during the 2021 lockdown, raising local spirits and giving professional pianists an artistic lifeline. For the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, the ‘BeethoVan’ made a reappearance on the lanes of the lakes with a mini tour of remote locations as well as a pop-up performance on the cobbled streets of Ulverston, replete with break-dancers! He continues to champion and support outreach activities and causes in the community, and brings a regular concert series to Ulverston Parish Church.
2024 sees the 20th anniversary of the Ulverston Festival and the 40th anniversary since Anthony’s debut recital in the area as a young boy! Anthony splits his time between London, Birmingham and the Lake District where he enjoys cycling up the many famed ascents and steep passes.
Sophia Rahman
Known for her ‘supreme chamber-musical responsiveness’ - The Arts Desk, pianist Sophia Rahman frequently champions the work of under-represented composers. Sophia made the first UK recording of Florence Price’s piano concerto, for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. She has made several discs of the work of female composers such as Rebecca Clarke and Dorothy Howell, her recordings of Howell’s works featuring in several episodes of BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week. Together with duo partner Andres Kaljuste, Sophia is committed to performing newly commissioned and undiscovered Estonian repertoire alongside the music of the celebrated Arvo Pärt, with whom the duo has enjoyed a long working association. The duo’s first disc of violin and piano music of Pärt’s composition teacher Heino Eller, recorded at the Arvo Pärt Centre, was released in 2024 to critical acclaim, and they have premiered a cluster of viola and
piano works written/arranged especially for them, notably by Tõnu Kõrvits, Rasmus Puur and Mingo Rajandi.
Sophia has toured extensively, appearing at top festivals like Gstaad, IMS Prussia Cove, Kuhmo and Pärnu, and collaborating with world-class musicians including Klaus Mäkelä, Augustin Hadelich and Steven Isserlis. As Artistic Director of Whittington Music Festival Sophia has worked with distinguished singers Mark Padmore and Roderick Williams and mentored some of the brightest instrumental and vocal talents of the new generation
Sophia has played for Steven Isserlis’ class at IMS Prussia Cove since 2011, where she has also worked with Atar Arad, Kim Kashkashian, Thomas Riebl, Hartmut Rohde and Steven Doane. Her interest in this work originated as a class pianist for the legendary cellist and teacher William Pleeth at the BrittenPears School. After attending the Yehudi Menuhin School, Sophia took a firstclass honours degree in English from King’s College, London, completing postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music and winning the Royal Overseas League’s collaborative and chamber music piano awards in consecutive years. ‘the best Bartok Contrasts I ever expect to hear’ David Nice in I’ll Think of Something Later.
Robert Markham
As Robert Markham maintains a busy career as performer and teacher. After early studies with Heather Slade-Lipkin at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, Robert entered the Juilliard School, New York at the age of 17 as recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Julius Isserlis Scholarship. He studied there with renowned Russian pedagogue Oxana Yablonskaya, graduating as Doctor of Musical Arts.
A prizewinner at major international competitions in the UK, Italy and the USA, Robert was finalist in the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow and piano class winner of the BBC Young Musician competition.
Acclaimed for his “extraordinary ‘clarity of thinking and trenchant technique’ (Musical Opinion), Robert has performed worldwide, appearing in major concert halls including New Yorks’ Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall and Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. He frequently appears as concerto soloist, and has performed with the BBC Philharmonic, the London Mozart Players, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Israel Chamber Orchestra.
Robert serves on the staff of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire as Senior Tutor in Solo and Collaborative Piano. He has given masterclasses at the Purcell School and Eton College in the UK, in Brazil, and in Germany, and is frequently invited to adjudicate and be a member of competition juries.