Biography

Pianist Paul Lewis studied with Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London before going on to study with Alfred Brendel. He is co-Artistic Director of Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival held in Buckinghamshire, UK, and the Leeds International Piano Competition. His cycles of core piano works by Beethoven and Schubert have received acclaim worldwide, and consolidated his reputation as a foremost interpreter of the central European classical repertory.

Mr. Lewis’s 2016-17 season included Beethoven concerto cycles with the Melbourne Symphony, the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Flemish Philharmonic; and appearances with Orchestre de Paris and Daniel Harding, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony. This season sees the start of a two-year recital series exploring connections between the sonatas of Haydn, the late piano works of Brahms, and Beethoven's Bagatelles and Diabelli Variations. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut at these performances.

Mr. Lewis’s recital career takes him to venues such as London's Royal Festival Hall, Alice Tully and Carnegie Hall in New York, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Berlin Philharmonie and Konzerthaus.

His multi-award-winning discography for Harmonia Mundi includes the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, concertos, and the Diabelli Variations; Liszt’s B minor Sonata and other late works; Schubert’s late piano works, including the three song cycles with tenor Mark Padmore; solo works by Schumann and Mussorgsky; and the Brahms First Piano Concerto with the Swedish Radio Symphony and Daniel Harding. Future recording plans include a multi-CD series of Haydn sonatas, Beethoven's bagatelles, and works by Bach.

Mr. Lewis’s numerous honors include the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year, two Edison awards, three Gramophone awards, the Diapason d'Or de l'Année, the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the Premio Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana, and the South Bank Show Classical Music award. He holds honorary degrees from Liverpool, Edge Hill, and Southampton universities, and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Queen's Birthday Honors.

(April 2018)