Stephen Hough, Piano

Sir Stephen Hough returns to Princeton University Concerts for a long-awaited solo recital after dazzling as both pianist and composer alongside the Tákàcs Quartet in 2025. Leading us from the intimate Klavierstücke of Schubert, Brahms, and Schoenberg to the lightning bolt of Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata and the dreamlike theater of Schumann’s Carnaval, the program culminates in Hough’s own virtuosic arrangements of songs from Mary Poppins. As these beloved familiar melodies are refracted through jaw-dropping pianistic imagination, the line between concert hall and fantasy becomes blurred. Sir Hough moves effortlessly between worlds: pianist, composer, writer, thinker. Knighted, a MacArther “Genius” Fellow, and widely regarded as one of today’s great polymaths, in his hands a recital becomes an evening of storytelling, wit, and wonder.