The Cheltenham Philharmonic is delighted to welcome back Joanna McGregor who is joining us for our Season Finale on Sunday 21st June. We are pleased to count Joanna as a friend of the orchestra and she will play Britten’s remarkable Piano Concerto with the orchestra.
Please book your tickets early as this will be a very popular concert.
Joanna MacGregor, one of the world’s most innovative and creative pianists, is currently Head of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and Artistic Director of Dartington International Summer School. She was, until 2012, Artistic Director of Bath International Music Festival, curator of the 2010 multi-arts Deloitte Ignite Festival at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and of Aventures, the 2012-2013 orchestral series at Luxembourg Philharmonie.
As a solo artist Joanna has performed in over seventy countries and worked with many eminent conductors — Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Valery Gergiev and Michael Tilson Thomas amongst them — and orchestras, including London and Sydney Symphony orchestras, Chicago, Melbourne and Oslo Philharmonic orchestras, the Berlin Symphony and Salzburg Camerata. She has premiered many landmark compositions, ranging from Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Django Bates to John Adams and James MacMillan. She performs regularly at major venues throughout the world, including Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre and the Barbican in London, Sydney Opera House, Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
She made three appearances at the 2012 BBC Proms, two of them televised (including Hugh Wood’s Piano Concerto and Messiaen’s Turangalîla), and made her debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival in Lincoln Center, New York in 2012. She is currently performing the complete Mozart concertos, and performed the complete Chopin Mazurkas to widespread acclaim in 2010. Known for her Bach interpretations, she was invited by Sir John Eliot Gardiner to perform the Goldberg Variations at the Royal Albert Hall in April 2013, broadcast live. This season’s schedule includes performances in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, China and USA.
Joanna MacGregor made her conducting debut in 2002 and has solo-directed concerts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata and the Hallé Orchestra, and enjoys a close artistic partnership with Britten Sinfonia. Her many collaborations include tabla player Talvin Singh, Brian Eno, folk artist Kathryn Tickell, jazz saxophonist Andy Sheppard, Arabic singer and oud virtuoso Dhafer Youssef, and the cultural historian Marina Warner. Joanna was the subject of a South Bank Show on ITV, and her performances are regularly broadcast on both television and radio, including the Last Night of the Proms.
Joanna MacGregor has made over thirty solo recordings, ranging from Bach and Scarlatti to Cage and Piazzolla. She has received Honorary Fellowships from the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music and Murray Edwards, Cambridge, as well as Honorary Doctorates from Bath University, Bath Spa and the Open University. From 1997 to 2000 she was Professor of Music at Gresham College, London, where she gave a series of public lectures.
She was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s 2012 Jubilee Honours , and in September 2013 was appointed a Professor of the University of London at the Royal Academy of Music.