Today's Out Spotlight is a concert pianist who is among the most talented and most highly acclaimed classical musicians of his generation. And within the traditionally closeted environment of classical music, he may also be, at least among his equally successful peers, the most openly gay classical musician working today. Today's Out Spotlight is Stephen Hough.
Stephen Hough was born on November 22, 1961 in Heswall on the Wirral Peninsula, England. He started taking piano lessons at the age of five and went on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He holds a Master's degree from the Juilliard School as well.
In his late teens, he was influenced by the sound of the singing Buckhurst Abbey monks and abandoned the Methodist church, in which he was raised, in favor of the Roman Catholic Church. At that time, he also briefly considered entering the priesthood.
Hough won the 1978 BBC Young Musician of the Year Piano Award at age 17. He went on to win the 1982 Terence Judd Award, and the Naumburg International Piano Competition in 1983, afterward embarking on an international performing career.
He now regularly performs with most of the major orchestras around the globe, including the London Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. He frequently appears as a soloist in Europe, Asia, the United States, and Australia.
He has appeared at festivals worldwide including Salzburg, Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Mostly Mozart (New York), Sapporo, Ravinia, Blossom, Tanglewood, Aspen, Hollywood Bowl and Saratoga.
He has made over 50 CDs, and is the only soloist who has twice won Gramaphone Magazine's Record of the Year Award. Among his most notable recordings is a set of the four Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, recorded during live performances with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to performing the standard piano repertoire, he also performs works by little known and unjustly neglected composers such as Federico Mompou, Xaver Scharvenka, Leopold Godowsky, and Johann Nepomuk Hummel and also actively promotes contemporary music, recording works by Goerge Tsontakis and Lowell Lieberman.
In addition to his accomplishments as an acclaimed pianist, Hough is also well known as a composer, chamber musician, conductor, and writer.His book, The Bible as Prayer, was released in the United States in 2007. It is a devotional publication consisting of daily meditations on selected verses from the Bible.
He also frequently contributes articles on various topics to the British Roman Catholic journal The Tablet. Hough tireless advocate for changes in Roman Catholic church acceptance of same-sex relationships, arguing that God does not intend for human beings to be alone. He forcefully challenges the Chuch's anti-gay interpretations as ahistorical and uncharitable.
In piece that he wrote that was included in the gay anthology The Way We Are Now, he wrote about the difficulties he experienced growing up as a Christian in an environment traditionally hostile to homosexuality. He also postulated a mysterious link between his musical talent and his sexual identity.
Hough's other writings include articles about piano interpretation, pianists (among them two gay pianists: Shura Cherkassky and Joseph Villa), travel journals, and several very well written texts for CD booklets. He is not only limited to prose, in 2008 he won the Sixth International Poetry Competition.
As a composer, Hough has contributed two masses ("Mass of Innocence and Experience," commissioned for the Anglican Westminster Abbey, and "Missa Mirabilis," commissioned for the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral), a cello concerto, "The Loneliest Wilderness," as well as smaller works published by Josef Weinberger, Ltd.
Hough made newspaper headlines in 2007 when his scheduled performances in Hanoi were abruptly canceled by the communist regime. Sponsors and government officials alleged that his sexual orientation might become a safety issue for him while visiting Vietnam.
In 2001, Hough received the renowned MacArthur Fellowship Award. In 2008, he received the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance from Northwestern University, an award given to "pianists who have achieved the highest levels of national and international recognition."
In 2005, Hough applied for Australian citizenship "by descent," since his father was born in Australia. Thus, he holds dual citizenship. He has explained his decision to become an Australian as stemming from the love he has for the country and for the link it provides with his family's past there, particularly with his father and grandfather.
He is an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London where he is a visiting Professor, and a Fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where he is the International Chair of piano studies. Currently he is a professor at the Royal College of Music in London and International Chair of Piano Studies at his alma mater in Manchester. He lives with his partner, a music publicist, in London.
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