Howard Shelley

A mainstay in Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto editions, Howard Shelley has devoted particular attention to Rachmaninov and to British repertoire from the twentieth century while frequently directing ensembles from the piano. Born in London on 3 March 1950, he displayed exceptional talent early, appearing on BBC television at ten and completing his studies at the Royal College of Music at twenty-one. His first appearance at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts came in 1972, after which he became a regular soloist both at the Proms and across BBC platforms. During the 1980s his engagement with Rachmaninov reached its peak: Hyperion began issuing his comprehensive survey of the composer’s solo piano music in 1982, and the following year he presented the entire cycle in a concentrated series of recitals at Wigmore Hall. Between 1989 and 1990 he taped the four Rachmaninov concertos for Chandos. Conducting commitments had already emerged by then, encompassing both keyboard-led performances and conventional podium work. In the early 1990s he served first as associate conductor and subsequently as principal guest conductor of the London Mozart Players, while also appearing with the Philharmonia and the London Symphony Orchestra. He later traversed all of Beethoven’s concertos with the BBC Philharmonic.

Shelley’s output for Hyperion and Chandos has been extensive, frequently yielding multiple releases within a single season. He has documented numerous post-Classical scores by Johann Baptist Cramer and Muzio Clementi, an interest that expanded into Hyperion’s long-running Romantic Piano Concerto project, devoted to reviving neglected nineteenth-century works. In that series he has often directed the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra from the keyboard; its eighty-first installment, issued by 2022, featured music by Alois (Aloys) Schmitt. A parallel Hyperion enterprise, The Classical Piano Concerto, commenced in 2014 under the same pianist-conductor arrangement and reached eight volumes by 2021, one of them devoted to Georg Benda. Shelley has also undertaken a complete traversal of Mendelssohn’s solo piano music and contributed to a Fryderyk Chopin Institute recording of Chopin’s concerted works. Named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009, he is married to pianist Hilary Macnamara, with whom he has appeared in duo repertoire; their son, conductor Alexander Shelley, has also directed his father.