The North Carolina Symphony most recently welcomed Stephen Hough in 2020. He performed Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in Raleigh.

Sir Stephen Hough is a pianist, composer, and writer who in 2001 became the first classical performer to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He was awarded Northwestern University’s 2008 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance, won the Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) Instrumentalist Award in 2010, and in 2016 was made an Honorary Member of RPS. In 2014 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honors in 2022. 

Since taking first prize at the 1983 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Piano Competition, Hough has appeared with most of the major European, Asian, and American orchestras and plays recitals in halls and concert series around the world. He has been a regular guest at festivals internationally and has made 29 concerto appearances at the BBC Proms. His catalogue of over 60 albums has garnered international prizes including the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Diapason d’Or, several Grammy nominations, eight Gramophone Classical Music Awards, and the Gramophone “Gold Disc” Award in 2008. 

Hough has composed for orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble, organ, harpsichord, and solo piano. A noted writer, he has contributed articles for The New York Times, the Guardian, The Times, Gramophone, and BBC Music Magazine, and wrote a blog for The Telegraph for seven years. He has published four books: The Bible as Prayer (2007); a novel: The Final Retreat (2018); a book of essays: Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More (2019); and a memoir: Enough: Scenes from Childhood (2023). 

Hough is an Honorary Fellow of Cambridge University’s Girton College and holds the International Chair of Piano Studies at his alma mater, the Royal Northern College in Manchester. He is also a member of the faculty at The Juilliard School.