Photo: Andrew Bi

KENNETH HAMILTON. Described by the Guardian (UK) as an “all-round virtuoso”, by the Singapore Straits Times as “one of the world’s most interesting and intrepid pianists”, and by Klassik Heute as a “pianist, scholar, radical thinker and philosopher”, Kenneth Hamilton is well-known worldwide as a performer of emotional depth and striking originality.  His recordings have enjoyed exceptional critical acclaim: Volume 1 of Kenneth Hamilton Plays Liszt: Death and Transfiguration, was a Gramophone “Best Classical Album of 2022”; Volume 2, Salon and Stage, was the Guardian’s “Best Classical Recording of 2023”.
Hamilton was born in Glasgow, studied at Glasgow and Oxford Universities, and subsequently with the Scottish composer-pianist Ronald Stevenson.  He is a familiar artist on BBC Radio 3, and contributes a regular column, “Musings of a Musician”, to International Piano Magazine.  Hamilton is also a leading expert on the history of piano performance.  His ground-breaking After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance (Oxford University Press) is one of the most internationally influential books on classical music performance-practice.  It was a “CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title” in the US, and a “Daily Telegraph Book of the Year” in the UK.  It has been translated into Italian, Hungarian and Mandarin.  A revised and enlarged edition will be published in 2028 in English, German and Japanese
Hamilton is a Steinway Artist.  He was Head of Cardiff University School of Music in Wales, UK, from 2014-2023.  His numerous albums on the Prima Facie label cover a host of composers, including Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Alkan, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Busoni, Grainger, Godowsky, Pedro Faria Gomes, John Casken and Ronald Stevenson.  His latest recordings are Handel Remembered (“phenomenal pianism”, Klassik Heute), and most recently, Volume 3 of his Liszt series, entitled Demonic and Divine.