Paul Lewis
© Kaupo Kikkas
Total fidelity
Piano
Joint Artistic Director, Midsummer Music Festival
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‘Total fidelity to the music’s structure and inner spirit, and an emotional response that never suffocates or distorts’
The Times
Paul Lewis is one of the foremost interpreters of the Central European piano repertoire, his performances and recordings of Beethoven and Schubert receiving universal critical acclaim. He was awarded CBE for his services to music, and the sincerity and depth of his musical approach have won him fans around the world.
With a natural affinity for Beethoven, Lewis took part in the BBC’s three-part documentary Being Beethoven and performed a concerto cycle at Tanglewood in summer 2022. He has performed the cycle all over the world, and was the first pianist to play the complete cycle in a single season at the BBC Proms in 2010.
Between 2022 and 2024, Lewis embarked on a Schubert Piano Sonata Series, presenting the completed sonatas from the last 12 years of Schubert’s life at venues around the world. The cycle continues into 2025, when he will also give the premiere of a new Piano Sonata by Thomas Larcher.
In chamber music, he works closely with tenor Mark Padmore in lied recitals around the world – they have recorded three Schubert song cycles together – and he is co-Artistic Director of Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival held in Buckinghamshire, UK.
‘Every time I play a concert, I treat it as a lesson. You comb through everything and try to be your own best teacher. It’s always changing. Every concert experience is a step in the process’
