Program and Artist Biography

Steven Osborne is one of Britain’s foremost musicians, renowned for his idiomatic approach to a wide variety of repertoire, from the mainstream, classical works of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms to the rarefied worlds of Messiaen, Tippett, and Britten. He has won numerous awards and prizes, including the 2009 Gramophone Award for his recording of Britten’s works for piano and orchestra, and first prize at both the Naumburg International Competition (New York) and Clara Haskil Competition.

Concerto performances take Osborne to orchestras all over the world, including recent visits to the NHK Symphony, the Berlin Symphony, the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Munich Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony, the Bergen Philharmonic, the Residentie Orkest, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. With these orchestras, he has enjoyed collaborations with such conductors as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Alan Gilbert, Vladimir Jurowski, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Leif Segerstam, and Jukka-Pekka Saraste.

In the UK, he works regularly with the major orchestras, especially the Philharmonia, the City of Birmingham Symphony, and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestras. His concerts are frequently broadcast by the BBC and he performs every year at Wigmore Hall. He has made eight appearances at the Proms, most recently in September 2010 when he performed Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 1.

Osborne has performed in many of the world’s prestigious venues, including the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, de Doelen Rotterdam, the Philharmonie Berlin, the Musikhalle in Hamburg, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, De Singel, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. His regular chamber music partners include Alban Gerhardt, Paul Lewis, Dietrich Henschel, and Lisa Batiashvili.

Osborne has won many awards for his recordings on Hyperion. In addition to the Gramophone Award in 2009 (Britten), his recording of Rachmaninov’s 24 Preludes was short-listed for a Gramophone Award, won a Schallplattenpreis, and was designated an "Editor's Choice" in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, International Record Review, Musical Opinion and The Daily Telegraph. According to the BBC Music Magazine in May 2009, “this is outstanding Rachmaninov playing of acute perception, discretion and poetic sensibility, limpid, powerful and luminous in equal measure.”

Osborne's double compact disc set of works by Tippett was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award and his CD of Messiaen’s complete Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jésus was also nominated for both a Gramophone Award and a Schallplattenpreis in Germany. Other recordings include Debussy’s complete preludes, solo works by Alkan, Liszt's Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, and solo works by Kapustin, a recording which was also nominated for a Schallplattenpreis. His recording of Beethoven sonatas was released in May 2010.

Born in Scotland in 1971, 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.