British pianist Sam Haywood has performed to critical acclaim all over the world. Alongside his busy solo and chamber music career, he is also a composer, transcriber and Artistic Director of the Solent Music Festival (www.solentmusicfestival.com).
Haywood is a regular duo partner to violinist Joshua Bell, with whom he has toured in the USA, Canada, China, South America and throughout Europe. They have performed for the Vice-Presidents of the USA and China. He also regularly appears with cellist Steven Isserlis and will be recording a CD of piano works by Julius Isserlis, Steven’s grandfather, for Hyperion. Haywood’s latest CD, entitled ‘Composers in Love’, features a selection of works inspired by the objects of composers’ desires.
Chopin has been a central theme throughout Haywood’s musical life. To celebrate the composer’s bicentennial year he made the world premiere recording on Chopin’s own Pleyel piano of 1846. It has since been broadcast numerous times on BBC Radio 3. He used the same instrument to perform with Steven Isserlis at Lancaster House in the presence of HRH Princess Alexandra where Chopin performed on the exact date in front of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1848. Haywood has also given private performances of Chopin for Princess Diana and more recently a Chopin seminar for TED.
Following his early success in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, the Royal Philharmonic Society awarded him their prestigious Isserlis award. Haywood went on to study with Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna, where he began his enduring passion for opera. At the Royal Academy of Music in London he was mentored by Maria Curcio, the renowned teacher and pupil of Artur Schnabel.
Outside the musical world he is passionate about the nature, food, magic, literature and technology.