Stephen Kovacevich

At eleven Stephen Kovacevich gave his first public concert in Los Angeles, where he was born in 1940; at eighteen he moved to London to study with Myra Hess, and in 1961 he introduced himself to a Wigmore Hall audience with the Berg Sonata, three Bach preludes and fugues and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations — a programme that announced most of what he would become. Beethoven has been the spine of the career ever since, in a recorded cycle of the sonatas, the concertos and a Diabelli he has returned to across decades, with Brahms, Schubert, Mozart and Bartók beside it. His chamber playing with Jacqueline du Pré and, later, with Martha Argerich belongs to the same long arc. He was still playing concertos at eighty-three, in Bulgaria Hall with the Sofia Philharmonic in January 2024. He began his career as Stephen Bishop and, to avoid confusion with a singer of that name, performed for some years as Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich before settling on Kovacevich. The New York debut came in 1967 and the Diabelli recording of the following year established his reputation; his long partnership with Colin Davis produced, among much else, the Bartók Second Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He has also conducted the London Mozart Players, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Vancouver and Montreal symphony orchestras, and teaches at the Dartington International Summer School.