Biographical Info

Described as ‘a brilliant light in the music world,’ Joanna MacGregor CBE is one of the world’s most innovative musicians, appearing as a concert pianist, curator and conductor. As Dame Myra Hess Chair of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and Professor of University of London, she runs an international piano department of young pianists from all over the world, many of whom have gone on to great success in major competitions like Van Cliburn, Leeds and Sydney International Piano Competitions, representation by Young Concert Artists Trust and busy international careers. She runs two annual Piano Festivals at the Royal Academy of Music, and also curates a year-round series at the Wigmore Hall for Academy pianists.

As a solo artist Joanna has performed in over eighty countries and appeared with many eminent conductors – Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon Rattle and Michael Tilson Thomas amongst them – and orchestras, including the London Symphony and Sydney Symphony orchestras, Chicago, Melbourne and Oslo Philharmonic orchestras, Berlin Symphony Orchestra and Salzburg Camerata. She has premiered many landmark compositions, and performs regularly at major venues throughout the world, including Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre and Barbican Centre in London, Sydney Opera House, Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Here 2020 cycle of the complete Beethoven Sonatas in Canterbury was followed in 2023 by an immersive series of Schubert recitals. The 2026-27 season sees her performing in Europe and Scandinavia, Canada and South America, India and China.

Joanna MacGregor has been the Artistic Director of Dartington Summer School and Bath International Music Festival, and curated the multi-arts Deloitte Ignite Festival at the Royal Opera House, as well as Aventures+, an orchestral series for Luxembourg Philharmonie. She made her conducting debut in 2002 and has directed the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, Britten Sinfonia, Manchester Camerata and the Hallé. Joanna is the Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, which celebrated its centenary in 2025 with Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony. Under Joanna’s direction, the BPO has tripled its ticket sales and created diverse, excited audiences for classical music; their fresh, bold programmes embrace orchestral music by Stravinsky and Mahler as well as Michael Nyman and Steve Reich. They collaborated with the globally acclaimed artist and filmmaker William Kentridge for a performance of Shostakovich’s 10^th Symphony in May 2026, and will be partnering Nigel Kennedy in the 2026-27 season for a programme of Beethoven and Jimi Hendrix.

Joanna is a regular broadcaster on TV and radio, making numerous appearances at the BBC Proms. Known for her interpretations of Bach, she was invited by Sir John Eliot Gardner to perform the Goldberg Variations at the Royal Albert Hall, broadcast live. Her collaborative and composition projects encompass jazz, film, visual art, contemporary dance and electronica, with artists including Brian Eno, Nitin Sawhney, Andy Sheppard and Wayne McGregor. An exciting collaboration with the British Film Institute, overseeing the scores to 47 newly-restored silent Sherlock Holmes films, opened at Alexandra Palace and has toured to Sydney Opera House. As a recording artist Joanna is a veteran of over forty solo recordings, ranging from Bach and Scarlatti to jazz and John Cage. Her own record label SoundCircus was founded in 1998 and has released many highly successful recordings, including the complete Chopin Mazurkas, the Mercury Prize-nominated Play, Bach’s Goldberg Variations (recorded at the Mozarteum in Salzburg) and Live in Buenos Aires with the Britten Sinfonia. Jazz recordings include Sidewalk Dances — music by the New York street musician Moondog — and Deep River, inspired by the Deep South, with saxophonist Andy Sheppard.

Joanna MacGregor was awarded a CBE for services to music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2019. She is a Visiting Musician at Oriel College Oxford, and in 2016 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Cambridge. She has received four more Honorary Doctorates from Bath University, Bath Spa University, Open University and St Andrew’s, as well as Honorary Fellowships from the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music and Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, and from the 500-year old Musicians’ Company in the City of London. She makes regular appearances on television and was the subject of a South Bank Show; from 2014-2021 she chaired the Paul Hamlyn Composers Awards and has been a Booker Prize Judge. Her ongoing series of music books, PianoWorld, has been hailed as ‘a new series for the Millennium,’ She is a judge on 2026’s BBC Young Musician of the Year.