Angela Hewitt

Pianist Angela Hewitt has earned global acclaim for her interpretive command of Bach, while her command of keyboard literature spans multiple centuries and stylistic periods. Long associated with the Hyperion catalog, she has released recordings steadily since the mid-1980s.

Born in Ottawa on July 26, 1958, Hewitt is the daughter of British organist and choir director Godfrey Hewitt and maintains dual British-Canadian citizenship. She began piano study at age three under her mother’s guidance, made her first public appearance at four, and received a scholarship the next year. In addition to piano she pursued violin, recorder, and ballet. Entering Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music in 1964, she performed a recital there at nine. She completed undergraduate studies at the University of Ottawa with Jean-Paul Sevilla, graduating at eighteen. Several competition victories, among them the 1985 International Bach Competition in Toronto, brought broader attention and led to a Deutsche Grammophon recording of Bach keyboard works—an association with the composer that has continued throughout her career. Her first Hyperion release, a 1994 set of Bach’s Two- and Three-Part Inventions, marked the beginning of an enduring relationship with the label.

After residing in Paris between 1978 and 1985, Hewitt established her home in London while preserving close ties to Canada. She has appeared at major venues such as New York’s Alice Tully Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, and the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, and she has performed with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, every major Canadian orchestra, and numerous American ensembles. Although Bach remains central, her repertory extends into the twenty-first century; recordings have been devoted to Beethoven, Fauré, and Albert Roussel, and she has commissioned new music from Dominic Muldowney and Matthew Whittall. During the 2010s her attention turned increasingly to Beethoven’s sonatas, culminating in a 2022 Hyperion album that paired the Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106 (“Hammerklavier”), with the Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 and brought her total releases past sixty. Later the same year she issued another Hyperion recording containing Mozart’s first seven piano sonatas.