Parsons and Poole Concert and Masterclass
Photo credit: Robert Torres via stephenhough.com
2025 Parsons and Poole Concert and Masterclass featuring Sir Stephen Hough
The Parsons and Poole Concert and Masterclass was created by alumni to honour Margaret Parsons and Clifford Poole, and to bring world-class musicianship to Western. Learn more
In 2025, we will welcome Sir Stephen Hough as our featured artist. A true polymath of the classical world, Sir Stephen Hough is an internationally acclaimed pianist, composer, and writer whose groundbreaking artistry and intellectual depth have earned him global recognition and a knighthood.
Concert
Saturday, October 18 | 7:30pm | von Kuster Hall
General admission: $45 in advance, $50 at the door (if available)
Students (with valid ID) and Seniors (55+): $20 in advance, $25 at the door (if available)
Tickets will be available for purchase by the end of July
Planned program:
- Schubert: Klavierstück no 2 D 946
- Brahms: Klavierstück op 118 no 6
- Schönberg: 6 Kleine Klavierstücke op 19
- Stockhausen: Klavierstück III
- Beethoven: Bagatelle op 119 no 10
- Beethoven: Sonata op 53 (Waldstein)
*** - Schumann: Carnaval op 9
- Sherman/Hough: Mary Poppins Suite (2021)
Masterclass
Saturday, October 19 | 10am
von Kuster Hall
Free admission. No registration required.
Parsons and Poole 2025
Sir Stephen Hough
One of the most distinctive artists of his generation, Sir Stephen Hough combines a distinguished career as a pianist with those of composer and writer.
Named by The Economist as one of Twenty Living Polymaths, Hough was the first classical performer to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (2001). He was awarded Northwestern University’s 2008 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano, won the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award in 2010, and in 2016 was made an Honorary Member of RPS. In 2014 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2022.
Since taking first prize at the 1983 Naumburg Competition in New York, Sir Stephen has appeared with most of the major European, Asian and American orchestras and plays recitals regularly in major halls and concert series around the world from London's Royal Festival Hall to New York’s Carnegie Hall. He has been a regular guest at festivals such as Aldeburgh, Aspen, Blossom, Edinburgh, La Roque d'Anthéron, Hollywood Bowl, Mostly Mozart, Salzburg, Tanglewood, Verbier, and the BBC Proms, where he has made 29 concerto appearances, including playing all of the works of Tchaikovsky for piano and orchestra, a series he later repeated with the Chicago Symphony.
Many of his catalogue of over 60 albums have garnered international prizes including the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Diapason d’Or, Monde de la Musique, several Grammy nominations, eight Gramophone Magazine Awards including ‘Record of the Year’ in 1996 and 2003, and the Gramophone ‘Gold Disc’ Award in 2008, which named his complete Saint-Saens Piano Concertos as the best recording of the past 30 years. His 2012 recording of the complete Chopin Waltzes received the Diapason d’Or de l’Annee, France’s most prestigious recording award. His 2005 live recording of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos was the fastest selling recording in Hyperion’s history, while his 1987 recording of the Hummel concertos remains Chandos’ best-selling disc to date.
Published by Josef Weinberger, Sir Stephen has composed works for orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble, organ, harpsichord and solo piano. He has been commissioned by the Takacs Quartet, the Cliburn, CMS Lincoln Center, the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet, the Gilmore Foundation, The Genesis Foundation, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, London’s National Gallery, Wigmore Hall, Le Musée de Louvre and Musica Viva Australia among others.
A noted writer, Sir Stephen has contributed articles for The New York Times, the Guardian, The Times, Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine, and he wrote a blog for The Telegraph for seven years which became one of the most popular and influential forums for cultural discussion and for which he wrote over six hundred articles. He has published four books: The Bible as Prayer (Bloomsbury and Paulist Press, 2007); a novel: The Final Retreat (Sylph Editions, 2018); a book of essays: Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More (Faber & Faber and Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019); and a memoir: Enough: Scenes from Childhood (Faber & Faber, 2023).
Sir Stephen is an Honorary Fellow of Cambridge University’s Girton College and holds the International Chair of Piano Studies at his alma mater, the Royal Northern College in Manchester. He is also a member of the faculty at The Juilliard School.
...read more at stephenhough.com
Margaret Parsons and Clifford Poole
Glamorous, talented and world-famous, the husband and wife pianists were not typical professors at Western in the 1950s. Margaret Parsons and Clifford Poole balanced performance tours as a piano duo with teaching and inspiring young musicians. They also recorded their work, created educational materials and started the Gilbert & Sullivan productions still going strong in London today.
They came to London in 1948 to teach at the Western Ontario Music Conservatory, Music Teachers' College and Department of Music at Western. Already well known, the pair joined the staff two years after Alfred Rose, Gustav Mahler’s nephew. Over the next few years, the three organizations evolved, each focusing on a different level of music education. As J.R.W. Gwynne-Timothy wrote in his Western’s First Century: “The concerts of the well-known piano duo, Clifford Poole and his wife Margaret Parsons, carried far and wide the name of music at Western as public relations emissaries for the college.”
A group of alumnae who studied with Parsons and Poole created an artist-in-residence program, called the Parsons and Poole Concert and Masterclass to carry their names into the future. The project gives students an opportunity to study with musicians who bring the same level of acclaim and expertise as Parsons and Poole.
The benefits of the Parsons-Poole Legacy Project will go beyond the music faculty, providing opportunities for inter-disciplinary scholarship and cultural enrichment for the community. This is a fitting continuation of the kind of projects the duo undertook while in London. They composed and arranged piano music for young players, and their Parsons-Poole Festival Piano Series and Poole’s many pedagogical piano pieces remain favourites. The pair also established a community concert series and toured to many Ontario towns and cities, often with students to showcase their talents and gain experience in performing.
Read the feature article about the history of this series and the establishment of the endowed fund. (published in March 2022)
For donor-related inquiries, contact Carole Metron at cmetron3@uwo.ca
For event-related inquiries, contact musicevents@uwo.ca
Past Parsons and Poole Performers
- Dang Thai Son, September 2024
- Yekwon Sunwoo, October 2023
- Louise Bessette, October 2022
- Jon Kimura Parker, October 2021
- Marc-André Hamelin, October 2020
- Stewart Goodyear, October 2019
- Sara Davis Buechner, October 2018
- Charles Richard-Hamelin, October 2017
- John O'Conor, October 2016
- Anagnoson and Kinton, piano duo, October 2015
- Angela Hewitt, October 2014
- Menahem Pressler, October 2013
- Andre LaPlante, October 2012
