Margaret Fingerhut


Margaret Fingerhut is a British classical pianist. She explores lesser-known pieces in her recitals and recordings. Fingerhut teaches at Trinity Laban Conservatoire and Birmingham Conservatoire where she is an Honorary Fellow.

Education and personal life

Fingerhut attended North London Collegiate School. She studied at the Royal College of Music with Cyril Smith and Angus Morrison, and afterwards with Vlado Perlemuter in Paris and Leon Fleisher and Adele Marcus in the USA. Fingerhut is married to David Tyler, a business executive. She has a son, Samuel Felix.

Career

Fingerhut's career was launched when she was selected as a Young Musician of the Year by the Greater London Arts Association in 1981. She made her London debut at the Wigmore Hall in the same year, and first played in the Royal Festival Hall in 1983. She has since given recitals in many different European countries, along with the USA, Canada, India, Turkey, Israel and countries in Africa. As a concerto soloist she has appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the London Mozart Players, in venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican. She appeared in Testimony, Tony Palmer’s film about Shostakovich.
Her discs on the Chandos label include works by Bainton, Bax, Berkeley, Bloch, Dukas, Falla, Grieg, Howells, Leighton, Moeran, Novák, Stanford, Suk and Tansman, as well as several collections of 19th century Russian and early 20th century French piano music. She was also the soloist in the world première recording of Percy Young’s arrangement of Elgar’s sketches for his Piano Concerto slow movement, with the Munich Symphony Orchestra conducted by Douglas Bostock. Other recordings include the discovery of a student piece by Rachmaninov, Edgar Bainton's Concerto Fantasia, Bax's Octet and works by Howells, Leighton, Lennox Berkeley and Michael Berkeley.
Two of her Bax recordings - the Octet with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble and the Concertante for Piano Left Hand and Orchestra with Vernon Handley and the BBC Philharmonic - were short-listed for Gramophone awards. Her disc of solo piano music by Alexandre Tansman was awarded a "Diapason D’Or" in Diapason magazine. Her CD of encores, "Endless Song", was Featured Album of the Week on Classic FM and was selected as "Editor's Choice" in Pianist magazine as well as being awarded an "Outstanding" accolade in International Record Review.
Fingerhut has an interest in working with contemporary composers and she has given first performances of works by James Francis Brown, Paul Spicer, Peter Copley and Tony Bridgewater, in venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room and the Three Choirs Festival.

Teaching

Fingerhut formerly taught piano at the Royal Northern College of Music and is currently Professor of Piano at Trinity Laban Conservatoire as well as a Visiting Tutor at Birmingham Conservatoire; where she has been made an Honorary Fellow. She is a regular guest at summer schools such as Dartington International Summer School, Chetham's International Summer School for Pianists and Jackdaws. Her teaching at Dartington was described by The Spectator magazine as demonstrating "enormous skill and sympathy". She has given masterclasses in the USA, Canada and China, and has been on the jury of competitions such as the BBC Young Musician of the Year.
She has written articles for magazines such as Classical Music, Pianist and Piano Professional.

Discography