For Joanna MacGregor's upcoming concert schedule please click on "CONCERT DATES" above
Joanna MacGregor is thought of as one of the world’s most innovative musicians, committed to expressing musical connections across increasingly diverse and original programming. The Artistic Director of Bath International Music Festival since 2006, in September 2011 she takes up her appointment as Head of Keyboard at the Royal Academy of Music. She was the curator of the 2010 multi-arts Deloitte Ignite Festival at the Royal Opera House, bringing together visual artists, contemporary dance, film and theatre installations, as well as music collaborations. She has performed in over sixty countries, often appearing as a solo artist with many of the world's leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio and Oslo Philharmonic Orchestras and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She has worked with many eminent conductors - Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon Rattle and Michael Tilson Thomas amongst them - and has premiered many landmark compositions ranging from Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Django Bates to John Adams and James MacMillan.
In May 2010 she gave two acclaimed performances of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev. Joanna MacGregor made her conducting debut in 2002 and regularly directs her own orchestral projects; in 2012-13 she will curate teh brand new orchestral series Aventure at the Luxembourg Philharmonie. She enjoys a close artistic partnership with Britten Sinfonia, in programmes ranging from classical music to new collaborations with jazz and world musicians. As a recording artist Joanna MacGregor is a veteran of over 30 solo recordings, ranging from Bach, Scarlatti, Ravel and Debussy, to jazz and contemporary music.
Her own record label SoundCircus was founded in 1998 and has released many highly successful recordings including the Mercury prize-nominated Play (including music by Bach, Ligeti and Piazzolla) and Neural Circuits, with music by Messiaen, Arvo Pärt and Nitin Sawhney. Current releases include Sidewalk Dances – music by the New York street musician Moondog - and Deep River, music inspired by the Deep South, with saxophonist Andy Sheppard. In 2010“Live in Buenos Aires” and Bach’s Goldberg Variations, recorded at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, were released by Warner Classics and Jazz, now in partnership with the worldwide distribution of the SoundCircus label, followed by a 4-CD Messiaen set. Seven futher releases are scheduled for summer 2011. From 1997-2000 Joanna MacGregor was Professor of Music at Gresham College, London where she gave a series of public lectures. She is a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art, Professorship of Performance at Liverpool Hope University, and has received honorary Fellowships from the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music and New Hall, Cambridge, as well as Honorary Doctorates from Bath University and the Open University. She was the subject of a South Bank show in 2002; and her interest in education is reflected in her ongoing series of music books for young children, PianoWorld, hailed as ‘a new series for the Millennium’. May 2011