Rolf Hind

Biography

Rolf Hind’s career has established him as a major force as soloist, composer, recording artist, chamber musician, pedagogue, collaborator and concert planner. He has given recitals at many of Europe’s leading new music festivals, and at Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House and on tours of Korea, Taiwan and Cuba.

Rolf has worked with many leading conductors, including Ashkenazy, Knussen, Rattle, David Robertson and Andrew Davis and appeared seven times at the BBC Proms. Orchestras he has worked with include the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Munich Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, many appearances with the London Sinfonietta, the LPO, RPO, and with all the BBC orchestras.

Composers who have worked with Rolf or written for him include Tan Dun, John Adams, Helmut Lachenmann, Unsuk Chin, Elliott Carter, George Benjamin and James MacMillan. Rolf’s compositions include a piano concerto, Maya-Sesha (nominated for a British Composer’s Award) and a concerto for accordion, premiered at London’s Barbican Centre. Much of his music is inspired by India, where he travels often, while drawing on the technical adventurousness of performers including himself.

An interest in new dance has resulted in collaborations including with choreographer Rui Horta on a large-scale tour of a new work, Danza Preparata, featuring John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano, with dancer. 

Rolf curates and performs in Occupy The Pianos, a new piano festival which has become a regular feature at St John’s Smith Square in London. The festival now enters its sixth iteration, having also travelled to France and in future to Denmark. He initiated a project in March 2020 which has now produced nearly 100 new short piano pieces from composers far and wide, intended as responses to lockdown, a fascinating range of pieces which he is now including in recital. He re-visited a masterpiece in the form of Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jesus in performance in December 2020.

His first opera, Lost in Thought, a ‘Mindfulness opera’ commissioned by Mahogany Opera Group was premiered at The Barbican in London. Current composition plans include a major new piece  commissioned by the BBC Singers and featuring Robin Michael, cello, plus an operatic project about the poet Sufi Rumi, working with Rolf’s long-time collaborator Frederick Wake-Walker and the Anglo-US poet Dante Micheaux.