Huw Watkins

Huw was born in Wales in 1976. He studied piano with Peter Lawson at Chetham’s School of Music and composition with Robin Holloway, Alexander Goehr and Julian Anderson at Cambridge and the Royal College of Music. In 2001 he was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music which he held for two years. He is now a professor of composition at the RCM. Huw is in great demand both as composer and pianist.

The Independent on Sunday described him as ‘a pianist of alert intelligence and a composer with something to say’ following his 1999 Park Lane Group Young Artists Concert at London’s Purcell Room. He is regularly heard on Radio Three, both as a soloist and with artists such as Alina Ibragimova, Daniel Hope, Nicholas Daniel, and Alexandra Wood. He has a strong commitment to the performance of new music, and has given premieres of works by Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell Davies and Mark-Anthony Turnage. 2006 highlights included a recording of Grace Williams’s Sinfonia Concertante with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the first performance of a concerto by John Woolrich with the Orchestra of the Swan. He has recorded Thomas Adès’ song cycle The Lover in Winter with the countertenor Robin Blaze for EMI Classics. His recording of contemporary British music for violin and piano was released on the Usk label in 2005. In 1999 the Nash Ensemble gave the first performance of Watkins’ Sonata for Cello and Eight Instruments, which had been commissioned by Faber Music.

In reviewing this work, The Times said that ‘at 22, Huw Watkins is already a composer to be reckoned with’. The piece has been performed by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in London, Paris, Copenhagen and Aldeburgh under the direction of Sakari Oramo and Peter Rundel. In 2000 the BBC National Orchestra of Wales gave the first performance of Watkins’ Sinfonietta under Grant Llewellyn. As a result of this collaboration, his Piano Concerto was commissioned for the same orchestra, which received its premiere in May 2002 under Martyn Brabbins with the composer at the piano. In 2001 Watkins’ String Quartet No2 was premiered at the Cheltenham Festival by the Petersen Quartet, and the Brahms Ensemble Hamburg gave the first performance of his Variations on a Schubert Song at the Gstaad Festival. The 2001/02 season saw Watkins’ first US commission - Nocturne for solo horn and chamber orchestra - which was first performed and recorded in March by David Jolley and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Mischa Santora. Watkins’ Cello Sonata was recorded by Paul and Huw Watkins for Nimbus Records on a CD featuring twentieth century British cello sonatas. His String Quartet No3 was written for the Belcea Quartet, who gave its premiere at Wigmore Hall in February 2004. 2005 saw the premieres of works for the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC NOW, the BCMG and the Nash Ensemble. New works in 2007 have included a viola and piano piece for Lawrence Power and a work for tenor and string quartet for Mark Padmore and the Petersen Quartet.

Pièce d'Orgue (2005) was performed during the 2007 AFNOM festival in London.