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Professor Emeritus

Ian R. Hobson

CAS Professor Emeritus of Music

British-born Ian Hobson is a musician of tremendous versatility who has earned a worldwide reputation as a pianist, conductor, and teacher. A finalist in the 1977 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, he later took silver medals at the Arthur Rubinstein and Beethoven International competitions. His international career as a pianist was launched in 1981 when he won first prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition.

Hobson’s training as a conductor began at Yale University, where he worked with Otto Werner-Mueller. Subsequent studies with Gustav Meier, Daniel Lewis, Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, and Andre Previn took place at Aspen and at Tanglewood. Lorin Maazel twice invited Hobson to conduct the Cleveland Orchestra for its Young Conductors’ Symposia.

Founder and music director of Sinfonia da Camera since 1984, he most recently conducted Sinfonia Varsovia at Carnegie Hall with Ewa Podles as soloist in Karol Szymanowski’s “Three Songs” as well as Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony and Chopin’s second piano concerto, conducted and played by Ian Hobson from the keyboard. He has also appeared as guest conductor with the Sinfonia Varsovia, Romanian National Radio Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Albanian Radio-Television Orchestra, Santa Rosa Symphony, Fresno Philharmonic, English Chamber Orchestra, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Nebraska Chamber Orchestra, Pomeranian Philharmonic, North Carolina Symphony, and the Illinois Opera Theatre. Hobson’s recordings as conductor or pianist/conductor include repertoire by Falla and Ravel, Ignaz Moscheles, Mendelssohn, Francaix, Milhaud, Saint Saëns, Walton, Sousa, Quincy Porter, and Gillis, to name but a few of the releases found in his more than thirty compact-disc discography on the Arabesque, Zephyr, Albany, BMG/Catalyst, EMI, and Hyperion labels.

Hobson has made solo appearances at New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Bard Music Festival, and throughout the United States, Europe, and the Far East. He has performed at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers Orchestra and on the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center. Major orchestras of the world with which he has appeared include the Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Scottish National, Royal Liverpool, Halle, ORD-Vienna, Das Orchester der Beethovenhalle, Israel Sinfonietta, New Zealand Symphony, Sinfonia Varsovia, and the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Houston.

He is a Swanlund Endowed Professor of Music. He is much sought after as a judge for both national and international competitions, including serving as a juror for the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1997.

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