Call of the Birds – with Joanna MacGregor CBE

One of the world’s most innovative musicians, Joanna MacGregor CBE is described as ‘a brilliant light in the music world.’ Joanna has appeared as concert pianist, curator and conductor in over eighty countries; as a soloist she has worked with eminent conductors including Pierre Boulez, Colin Davis, Simon Rattle and Michael Tilson Thomas; in 2024-25 she will tour Europe, Scandinavia, US, Canada and China. 

Joanna is Dame Myra Hess Chair of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and runs two annual piano festivals for young musicians, as well as year-round series at Wigmore Hall; she has been Artistic Director of Dartington Summer School, Bath International Festival and Deloitte Ignite at the Royal Opera House, as well as a curator for festivals around the world. Since 2020 she has been Music Director of Brighton Philharmonic, and will conduct and direct a vibrant season of orchestral music as BPO celebrates its centenary year.

She has released over forty solo recordings – many of them on her own award-winning record label SoundCircus – ranging from Chopin and Piazzolla to Bach and John Cage. Joanna has commissioned and premiered many landmark works, and is a regular broadcaster on TV and radio, appearing many times at the BBC Proms. Her collaborative projects encompass jazz, film, visual art, contemporary dance and electronica, with artists including Brian Eno, Nitin Sawhney, Andy Sheppard and Wayne McGregor. From 2015-2021 she chaired the Paul Hamlyn Composers Awards and has been a Booker Prize Judge. Her bestselling series of books for children, PianoWorld, is hailed as ‘a new series for the Millenium.