“You could have heard a pin drop. Steven Osborne’s power over the hall was absolute…the atmosphere was spellbound. ” Daily Telegraph

Biography

From exhilarating concertos to delicate chamber works, from mainstream Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms to the rarefied worlds of Messiaen, Tippett and Alkan, Steven Osborne is at home with the widest range of styles and his carefully crafted recital programmes and idiomatic approach to contrasting works are both publicly and critically acclaimed.

Concerto performances take Steven Osborne to orchestras all over the world including recent performances with the NHK Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteum, Residentie Orkest, Australian Chamber Orchestra and the NDR Sinfonieorchester Hannover. With these orchestras he has enjoyed collaborations with conductors including Christoph von Dohnanyi, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Evgeny Svetlanov, Sir Charles Mackerras, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Andrew Litton, Alan Gilbert, Vassily Sinaisky and Jukka-Pekka Saraste.

In the UK he works regularly with the major orchestras, especially with the Philharmonia and London Philharmonic Orchestras. His concerts are frequently broadcast by the BBC and he performs every year at the Wigmore Hall. He has made seven appearances at the Proms, most recently in July 2007, receiving unanimous praise from critics for his performance of the Britten Piano Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov.

Steven Osborne is a renowned recitalist and has performed in many of the world’s prestigious venues including the Konzerthaus Vienna, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Philharmonie Berlin, Musikhalle Hamburg, Palais des Beaux Arts Brussels, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Kennedy Center Washington and Carnegie Hall in New York where he made his debut in December 2005.

He begins the 2007/8 season performing the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Marek Janowski. Later he opens the International Piano Series at London’s Southbank Centre, performs with the Philharmonia conducted by Leif Segerstam, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with Oleg Caetani and tours Australia with Musica Viva. In celebration of the Messiaen centenary and as a leading interpreter of the composer, Steven performs Turangalîla with the Bergen Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Munich Philharmonic/Thielemann and the Netherlands Philharmonic/Kreizberg, Trois Petites Liturgies with the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Metzmacher, and tours the Quartet for the End of Time with Alban Gerhardt and Lisa Batiashvili.

Steven Osborne records regularly for Hyperion. His CD of Messiaen’s complete Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jésus was met with exceptional praise and was nominated for both a Gramophone Award and a Schallplattenpreis in Germany. Summer 2006 saw the release of Debussy’s complete Preludes which was selected by Gramophone as “Editor’s Choice”. Other recordings include solo works by Alkan and Liszt Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, both of which were also selected as “Editor’s Choice” in Gramophone and solo works by the contemporary Russian composer Kapustin which was also nominated for a Schallplattenpreis. Future releases include a double CD of works by Tippett and Britten’s works for piano and orchestra.

Born in Scotland in 1971, Steven Osborne studied with Richard Beauchamp at St. Mary's Music School in Edinburgh and Renna Kellaway at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He won first prize at the Naumburg International Piano Competition (New York) and the Clara Haskil Competition.