Marc-André Hamelin
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Marc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ, (born September 5, 1961) is a French-Canadian classical pianist and composer.
Born in Montréal, Quebec, Hamelin is internationally renowned for his effortless musical virtuosity and refined pianism - many regard him as the supreme technician of the instrument. Perhaps best known for his attention to lesser-known composers especially of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Leo Ornstein, Nikolai Roslavets, Georgy Catoire, Charles Ives), and for performing difficult works by pianist-composers such as Leopold Godowsky, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Kaikhosru Sorabji, he is equally at home with the standard repertoire.
Marc-André Hamelin began his piano studies at the age of five and was nine years old when he won the top prize in a Canadian music competition. His father, a pharmacist by trade who was also a keen pianist, introduced him to the works of Alkan, Godowsky 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, Pennsylvania where he now makes his home. A popular rumour is that he learned Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum at the age of seventeen; in fact, although he did study this work at that time, he did not learn it completely. He was the page turner for Geoffrey Douglas Madge in a performance of this piece in Montréal in 1984.
Well established in both North America and Europe, Marc-André Hamelin has given recitals in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Mexico City, Milan, Montreal, Moscow, New York, Ottawa, Paris, Philadelphia, Québec, San Juan Puerto Rico, De Doelen Rotterdam, Toronto, Vienna, Washington and Warsaw. Festival appearances have included Bad Kissingen, Belfast, Cervantino, La Grange de Meslay, Husum Piano Rarities, Lanaudière, Ravinia, La Roque d’Anthéron, Ruhr Piano, Scotia (Halifax), Singapore Piano, Snape Maltings Proms, Turku and Ottawa Strings of the Future, as well as the Chopin Festivals of Bagatelles (Paris), Duszniki and Valldemossa. Following the success of his 1994 Wigmore Hall series Virtuoso Romantics, Marc-André Hamelin appears regularly in both the Wigmore Hall Masterconcert Series and the International Piano Series at London’s South Bank Centre. He plays annually in the Herkulessaal in Munich and has given a series of six recitals in Tokyo entitled 200 Years of Pianism with Marc-André Hamelin.
He has made many recordings of a wide variety of composers with the Hyperion label. His recording of the complete Godowsky Studies on Chopin's Études won the 2000 Gramophone Instrumental Award. He has devoted CDs to solo piano music of Albeniz, Alkan, Catoire, Sophie Eckhardt-Grammaté, Godowsky, Grainger, Haydn, Nikolai Kapustin, Liszt, Medtner, Ornstein, Reger, Roslavets, Schumann, Scriabin, Sorabji, Szymanowski and Villa-Lobos, and including many other composers on other recordings. He has also recorded several piano concerti, and a number of discs of chamber music and as an accompanist. His latest recording is a 2-CD set with the Haydn piano sonatas for the Hyperion label.
Hamelin is the composer of several works, including a projected set of 12 piano études in minor keys, of which six are completed. The twelfth in the cycle, a Prelude and Fugue, has been published by Doberman-Yppan; a cycle of seven pieces, called Con Intimissimo Sentimento, was published (with a recording by Hamelin) by Ongaku No Tomo Sha; and a transcription of Zequinha de Abreu's Tico-Tico No Fuba has been published by Schott Music. Although the majority of his compositions are for piano solo, he has also written three pieces for player-piano, and several works for other forces, including Three Fanfares for three trumpets, published by Presser. His other works are distributed by the Sorabji Archive.
He was the winner of the 1985 Carnegie Hall International Competition of American Music. In 2004 Hamelin received the international record award in Cannes. He has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Chevalier de l'Ordre national du Québec (National Order of Quebec).
