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Selected as a ‘Talent to Watch’ for 2007 by BBC Music Magazine, and described as ‘a rising star’ (BBC Radio 3) and ‘one of Britain’s most exciting young pianists’ (Classic FM), Matthew Schellhorn has a growing international career, which in recent seasons has seen recitals in Europe, Ireland and North America.
Born in Yorkshire in 1977, Matthew Schellhorn studied at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester and the University of Cambridge with David Hartigan, Maria Curcio, Ryszard Bakst and Peter Hill, and later in Paris with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen.
Matthew Schellhorn has been guest soloist at several international festivals, including the Three Choirs Festival, the Windsor Festival, the Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts, and the Britten Sinfonia–BBC Radio 3 ‘Tippett 2005’ festival in Cambridge. He has given performances in many major venues throughout the UK, including the Purcell Room (Southbank Centre) and St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the Adrian Boult Hall in Birmingham, the Djanogly Recital Hall in Nottingham, the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall in York, the Huntingdon Hall in Worcester, West Road Concert Hall and the Corn Exchange in Cambridge, the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in Oxford, and the De Montfort Hall in Leicester. He performs regularly on BBC Radio 3, and in 2005 he was featured on Classic FM’s The Guest List.
Recent concerto performances have included appearances with the London Mozart Players (St John’s, Smith Square, London), sinfonia ViVA (The Assembly Rooms, Derby), and Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra (West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge). He has worked with numerous conductors, including Jane Glover, Peter Stark, Russell Keable, David Hill, Andrew Fardell, Stephen Cleobury and Baldur Brönnimann.
Matthew Schellhorn is a prominent performer of new music, with several works written for or dedicated to him, including The Will of the Tones by Jeremy Thurlow and Two Scherzos by Tim Watts. Composers with whom he has worked include Hugh Wood, Robin Holloway, Alexander Goehr, James Francis Brown, John Hawkins, Jeremy Thurlow, Jane O'Leary, Adrian Williams, Lloyd Moore, David Bruce, Peter Wiegold, Gabriel Jackson, Cecilia McDowall, Kenneth Hesketh, and Joe Duddell. He has given numerous world and territorial premieres, most recently of Stations, a major new work written for him by Irish composer Ian Wilson.
Matthew Schellhorn’s performances of the music of Olivier Messiaen have been met with superlative critical approval. His acclaimed solo recital at London’s Southbank Centre in 2006 confirmed his status as the pre-eminent Messiaen interpreter of his generation in Britain. Following his performances at the age of twenty of Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus in Cambridge, he was invited in 2002 to perform at the Messiaen International Conference, where Christopher Dingle of BBC Music Magazine described one solo recital as ‘a cherished memory for those privileged enough to experience it’. The most recent endorsement comes from Messiaen’s wife and dedicatee, who has described Matthew as ‘an excellent pianist and an excellent exponent’, and has praised his playing as ‘in every way wonderful … accuracy, rhythm, sonority, technique, emotion … everything is played as Messiaen wished it.’ During the 2008 Messiaen centenary, Matthew Schellhorn will be involved in numerous performances of Messiaen’s music. In the UK, he will be guest soloist in performances of Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine and Turangalîla-Symphonie under Stephen Cleobury and Baldur Brönnimann. He will also take part in the ‘Festival Messiaen au Pays de la Meije’ in France. His new disc with the Soloists of the Philharmonia Orchestra (Messiaen chamber works) will be released in July 2008 by Signum Classics.
Other forthcoming highlights include appearances at the Three Choirs and Hampstead and Highgate Festivals, performances with the London Mozart Players, and a solo recital at the Wigmore Hall on 7 May.: download this biography as a pdf :