Alasdair Beatson

Pianist Alasdair Beatson has a wide range that includes solo recitals, concerto performances, and chamber music. He champions contemporary music, and he often mixes familiar and rarely heard material in his concerts and recordings. Beatson was born on March 30, 1980, in Perth, Scotland. He had lessons there as a youth with Claire Gallagher. When he was 18, he moved to London, enrolling at the Royal College of Music for studies with John Blakely, and he moved on to Indiana University, where his teacher was Menahem Pressler. Several prizes garnered attention for the young Beatson, including the Making Music Award for Young Concert Artists and second prize at the Shanghai International Piano Competition. Beatson has played concertos with the Britten Sinfonia, the Moscow Virtuosi, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, among other groups. As a recitalist, he has appeared several times at London's Wigmore Hall, including during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020-2021. His chamber music collaborators are a varied group, including cellist Pieter Wispelwey, violinist Pekka Kuusisto, and the Doric String Quartet. Beatson has worked extensively with contemporary composers, performing new works by Harrison Birtwistle, Heinz Holliger, and Helena Winkelman, among others. He has taught summer courses and given master classes at British universities, including the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and the Birmingham Conservatoire at Birmingham City University. Beatson is the founder and artistic director of the French chamber music festival Musique à Marsac. Beatson's recording career began in 2009 with a recital of music by Schumann, Grieg, Brahms, and Berg on the Somm label. He has also recorded for Champs Hill, Claves, and BIS, where in 2021, he issued an album of Beethoven violin sonatas with violinist Viktoria Mullova. That year also saw the release of Beatson's solo album Aus Wien on the PentaTone Classics label.