Ian Hobson is an English pianist, conductor and teacher, and is a professor at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and at Florida State University. His pianistic repertoire spans the baroque to the contemporary, but he specialises in the Romantic repertoire. Starting September 1st 2023 he will be serving as a guest conductor of Sinfonia Varsovia.[1]
Hobson was born in Wolverhampton. He studied at King Henry VIII School, Coventry, the Royal Academy of Music, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and Yale University in the United States. His teachers included Claude Frank, Ralph Kirkpatrick and Menahem Pressler.
Hobson made his London debut in 1979. He won silver medals in the Arthur Rubinstein and Vienna-Beethoven competitions and first prize in the 1981 Leeds International Pianoforte Competition. His United States debut came in 1983, and he has since performed in concert and recital in many countries and with many orchestras. He frequently conducts from the keyboard.
His piano repertoire includes:
Piano Concertos
He has appeared in duo recital with his then wife Claude Edrei Hobson.
He has attracted world class instrumental soloists to appear with the Sinfonia da Camera, which he founded in 1984.[2] His opera conducting activities include works from Giovanni Battista Pergolesi to Richard Strauss. For his own Zephyr label, he conducted the world premiere of a new concert edition of John Philip Sousa's operetta El Capitan, with the Sinfonia da Camera, and also recorded the work. His other recordings include Stravinsky's Histoire du soldat and Walton's Façade, with the baritone William Warfield.
Prior to joining the faculty at Florida State University, Hobson served as a music professor at the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He has been a juror on a number of international music competitions. Hobson is the father of NPR Here & Now[3] host Jeremy Hobson.