Marc-André Hamelin

Pianist Marc-André Hamelin, a “performer of near-superhuman technical prowess” (The New York Times), is acclaimed worldwide for his unrivaled consummate musicianship. He continues to amass praise for his brilliant pianism in the great works of the repertoire, and for his intrepid exploration of the rarities of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. He regularly performs around the globe with the leading orchestras and conductors of our time, and gives recitals at major concert venues and festivals worldwide.

Hamelin’s 2026/2027 season spans Asia, North America, and Europe, with a wide breadth of orchestral, recital, and chamber music engagements. He opens the season at the Tsinandali Festival in Georgia, where he gives a solo recital and joins violinist Lisa Batiashvili for the Chausson Concert. He then tours Asia, performing Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with the Korean National Symphony Orchestra under Roberto Abbado and with the Nanchang Symphony Orchestra led by Yu Ji, along with solo recitals in Chengdu, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Xiamen.

In North America, orchestral highlights include performances with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Gemma New; Vancouver Symphony under Otto Tausk;the Utah Symphony led by Markus Poschner;the Milwaukee Symphony and Kwame Ryan; the Oregon Symphony under Shiyeon Sung; the Orchestre symphonique de Québec under Clemens Schuldt; the Rochester Philharmonic with Andreas Delfs; and a chamber program with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Recital highlights include the world premiere of his 24 Preludes commissioned by Chamber Music in Napa Valley, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Merkin Hall in New York, Keyboard Concerts in Fresno.. In addition, he tours Beethoven cello sonatas with Johannes Moser to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, the Saskatoon Symphony, and the Ladies’ Morning Musical Club in Montréal, joins the Dover Quartet for the Tuesday Evening Concert Series in Charlottesville, and the Balourdet Quartet at Seattle Chamber Music Society.

In Europe, Hamelin appears with the Hamburger Symphoniker, with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana  under Maximiano Valdés, and joins the Leonore Orchestra. Recitals take him to Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, Milan’s Società dei Concerti, the Berlin Piano Festival, the Kronberg Academy, the Cambridge Music Festival at Trinity College, and Brussels’ Flagey, along with appearances in Copenhagen, The Hague, Gdańsk, and Liechtenstein, and a tour of Italy that includes Turin’s Lingotto Musica, the Festival Internazionale del Mediterraneo in Bari, Rome, Pisa, and Casale Monferrato.

An exclusive recording artist for Hyperion Records, Hamelin has released more than 90 notable recordings of a broad range of solo, orchestral, and chamber repertoire. Recent acclaimed releases include Found Objects / Sound Objects, a recording of contemporary works; Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, Op. 106, and Sonata in C major, Op. 2, No. 3; and the Dvořák and Florence Price quintets with the Takács Quartet.

Also a noted composer, Hamelin has written more than 30 works. Many, including his Études and Toccata on “L’homme armé” - commissioned by the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition - are published by Edition Peters. He performed the Toccata in 2023 on NPR’s Tiny Desk alongside works by C.P.E. Bach and William Bolcom. In 2024, he premiered his Mazurka which was commissioned by the Library of Congress to celebrate 100 years of concerts. His 2024 album New Piano Works, featuring nine original pieces, is a survey of some of his own recent works, exhibiting his formidable skill as a composer-pianist whose music imaginatively and virtuosically taps into his musical forebears. “His previous offerings of his own music were rich, but his latest self-portrait album is on another level,” wrote The New York Times.

Hamelin is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the German Record Critics’ Association, and over 20 of its quarterly awards. Other honors include eight Juno Awards, 11 Grammy nominations, the 2018 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize from Northwestern University, and the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award from the Ontario Arts Foundation. Hamelin is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada. Born in Montreal, Hamelin lives in the Boston area with his wife, Cathy Fuller, a producer and host at Classical WCRB. He also teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music.