Joanna MacGregor

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 a solo pianist she has appeared with leading orchestras, performing in over eighty countries with eminent conductors including Pierre Boulez, Colin Davis, Simon Rattle and Michael Tilson Thomas.

In 2026-27 she will tour Europe, Scandinavia, US, Canada, South America, India 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 a year-round series at the Wigmore Hall; she has been Artistic Director of Dartington International Summer School, Bath International Festival, and Deloitte Ignite at the Royal Opera House, as well as a curator for festivals around the world.

In 2020 Joanna performed Beethoven’s thirty-piano sonatas as part of Beethoven’s 250th celebrations and gave an immersive series of Schubert’s piano music in 2023. 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 and composition projects encompass jazz, film, visual art, contemporary dance and electronica, and she is overseeing the music for forty-seven silent Sherlock Holmes films with the BFI.

From 2015-2021 she chaired the Paul Hamlyn Composers Awards and has been a Booker Prize Judge. Joanna MacGregor has five Honorary Doctorates in music, including Cambridge and St Andrews. She is Music Director and Principal Conductor of Brighton Dome’s resident orchestra Brighton Philharmonic, conducting bold, innovative concerts as they enter their second century.