Mishka Rushdie Momen

Pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen first drew international attention after securing multiple competition victories, which paved the way for her initial solo album, Variations, issued in 2019. The 2021 The Times Breakthrough Award for classical music followed, opening doors to solo and chamber engagements across Europe and the United States alongside distinguished partners such as Midori, Mark Padmore and Steven Isserlis. Under contract with Hyperion, she released her second solo recording, Reformation, on that imprint in 2024.

Born in London in 1992, Rushdie Momen grew up in a household where neither parent, both of whom had moved from India, pursued music; her maternal uncle is the writer Salmon Rushdie. A piano stood in the family home, and her fascination with the instrument took hold while observing her sister’s practice sessions, after which she would replicate the music at the keyboard. Formal lessons soon commenced, revealing rapid progress in both technique and score reading. Recognizing this aptitude, her parents enrolled her at the Purcell School at the age of six, making her the youngest student ever accepted there. Under Ilana Davids she gave her debut recital at ten. At thirteen she captured first prize in New York’s Leschetizky Concerto Competition, and the following year she began working with Imogen Cooper. Full scholarship admission to the Guildhall School arrived at fifteen, where studies with Cooper continued; during Cooper’s absences, lessons with Joan Havill began, later extending into postgraduate work. Additional mentors included Richard Goode and Alfred Brendel. After participating in an András Schiff masterclass at Guildhall, she transferred to the Kronberg Academy for further instruction with him, and Schiff subsequently promoted her through concerts in both Europe and the United States.

The year 2010 proved decisive: chosen as the youngest of six pianists for the Chopin Society U.K.’s bicentenary recitals honoring Chopin’s birth, she also secured first prize at the Tunbridge Wells International Young Concert Artists Competition and made her Indian debut in Mumbai, a city tied to her family heritage. Competitive successes continued in subsequent seasons. Her programming centers on Mozart and the Romantic repertoire of Beethoven, Schubert and Robert Schumann, while also encompassing earlier Classical and pre-Classical literature and contemporary scores; she has commissioned pieces from Nico Muhly and Vijay Iyer. In chamber settings, a key partnership has developed with cellist Steven Isserlis, whom she first encountered during her studies with Schiff; further collaborators include violinist Midori, tenor Mark Padmore and composer-soprano Héloïse Werner, from whom she has likewise commissioned new music.

Her recording career began in 2018 with a collaborative account of Mozart’s Concerto for Three Pianos, K. 242, alongside Peter Donohoe and Valerie Tryon. The solo debut followed in 2019 on the Somm label with Variations, presenting music by Clara and Robert Schumann, Brahms and Mendelssohn together with the Muhly and Iyer commissions. In the early 2020s she joined the Hyperion roster and appeared as accompanist on Steven Isserlis’s 2021 release British Solo Cello Music. That same year brought The Times Breakthrough Award for classical music at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards, resulting in a profile on The South Bank Show. Her return to solo recording came in 2024 with Reformation on Hyperion, devoted to composers active during a turbulent period in English history.