Warner Classics & Jazz

Biography

For Joanna MacGregor's upcoming concert schedule please click on "CONCERT DATES" above

Joanna MacGregor is thought of as one of the world’s most wide-ranging and innovative musicians and has pursued a life connecting many genres of music defying categorizations. She has performed in over sixty countries, often appearing as a solo artist with many of the world's leading orchestras. These include the New York Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio and Oslo Philharmonic Orchestras and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The many eminent conductors with whom she has worked include Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon Rattle and Michael Tilson Thomas. She has premiered many landmark compositions ranging from Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Django Bates to John Adams and James MacMillan. In May 2010 she gives two performances of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev.

Joanna MacGregor made her conducting debut in 2002 and regularly directs her own orchestral projects, including an all-Mozart programme with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Bach with the Hallé. She enjoys a close artistic partnership as conductor and performer with Britten Sinfonia, in programmes ranging from classical music to new collaborations with jazz and world musicians. This ten-year relationship continues this season with tours in Spain, Mexico and South America. She has toured South Africa with jazz artist Moses Molelekwa, recorded with pop artist and tabla player Talvin Singh, collaborated with Brian Eno, and in 2003 toured China with Crossborder; created with Jin Xing's Contemporary Dance Theatre of Shanghai, it combined Chinese traditional music with computer technology and film. For Bath International Music Festival 2007 she curated the installation On The Edge of Life, a multimedia collaboration between paediatricians, artists and musicians, examining premature birth. This is now an annual event, and in 2008 the series examined the impact of homelessness and in 2009 child human rights through the prism of fairytales with cultural historian Marina Warner. In 2009 she opened the London Jazz Festival with a collaboration between Arabic singer and oud virtuoso Dhafer Youssef and Britten Sinfonia, hailed by The Times as 'the future of music'.

As a recording artist Joanna MacGregor has made over 30 solo recordings, ranging from Bach, Scarlatti, Ravel and Debussy, to jazz and contemporary music. Her own record label SoundCircus was founded in 1998 and has released many highly successful recordings including the Mercury prize-nominated Play (including music by Bach, Ligeti and Piazzolla) and Neural Circuits, with music by Messiaen, Arvo Pärt and Nitin Sawhney. Current releases include Sidewalk Dances – music by the New York street musician Moondog - and Deep River, music inspired by the Deep South, with saxophonist Andy Sheppard. In 2010 “Live in Buenos Aires” and Bach’s Goldberg Variations, recorded at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, will be released on the Warner Classics & Jazz label, which is now distributing everything on the SoundCircus label, including all back catalogue titles.

Joanna MacGregor holds Professorships at Liverpool Hope University and the Royal College of Art, and has received honorary Fellowships from the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music and New Hall, Cambridge, as well as Honorary Doctorates from Bath University and the Open University. From 1997-2000 she was Professor of Music at Gresham College, London where she gave a series of public lectures. Her interest in education is reflected in her music books for young children, PianoWorld, hailed as ‘a new series for the Millenium’.

Since 2006 Joanna MacGregor has been Artistic Director of Bath International Music Festival.