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HYPERION KNIGHT
Pianist & Storyteller
Email: Hyperion@HyperionKnight.com
Hyperion Knight is a piano virtuoso with a romantic touch, equally at home in serious classics and popular standards, with recordings ranging from Beethoven to the Beatles and Ragtime to Rachmaninoff. Covering timeless melodies in all styles, he was recently featured in a Public Television special entitled Hyperion Plays Great Piano Classics, a TV program that began with works of Chopin and Liszt and concluded with songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Queen. And in a recent series of films for Hillsdale College, The History of Classical Music, Hyperion illustrates the growth of music dating back to ancient Greece. In addition to regular appearances with orchestras across the United States, he has been a featured entertainer at Manhattan’s Rainbow Room and Essex House. A Gershwin enthusiast, he has recorded two CDs devoted to unique arrangements of Gershwin’s music, and frequently performs both Rhapsody in Blue and the Concerto in F, most recently with the symphony orchestras of New Jersey, Wisconsin, Santa Fe, Long Beach, Tennessee, St. Joseph, Johnson City, Grand Forks, New Mexico, California North State and Cheyenne. Other guest appearances include the Mozart Concerto #21 with the Utah Symphony, the Grieg Concerto with the Maui Pops Orchestra, and the Rachmaninoff Concerto #2 with the Kansas City Philharmonia and the Cleveland Philharmonic. Hyperion also makes frequent concert presentations on luxury cruise lines such as Regent, Seabourn, Holland America, Celebrity, Oceania, and Silversea, where he was named Silversea's "Entertainer of the Year".
Hyperion was born in Berkeley, California and graduated at age 19 from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. By the age of 22 he had received both a Master’s degree and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and he was awarded the Arthur Loesser Prize upon graduation. Hyperion now lives in New York City, where he studied with members of the Juilliard faculty and made his New York concerto debut playing the Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto #1. Hyperion's distinguished teachers have included Paul Hersh, Eunice Podis, Paul Schenly and Jerome Lowenthal.
Hyperion has made a specialty of virtuoso piano transcriptions in the tradition of Liszt and Horowitz. His song arrangements in Gershwin by Knight received raves from Stereophile: “Hyperion Knight plays with marvelous verve and spectacular confidence. Notes are never fumbled or blurred, yet the performance has swing and drive.” The Sensible Sound called his Gershwin “nothing short of astonishing.” A Classical Knight, his CD of romantic piano transcriptions, was called "one of the most enjoyable CD's of recent years" by CD Review, and Fi Magazine described Hyperion as a “daredevil atop his gleaming, black-and-ivory silken-voiced machine. Bravissimo!”
Hyperion is also an enthusiast for the great performers of the past, and has published numerous articles about the great pianists and conductors of the early twentieth century, as well as co-authoring several novels.
“Not since Heifetz has anyone played Gershwin solos with this much panache…the songs glitter like jewels against black satin.”
American Record Guide
"A consummate showman, Knight has a caressing, liquid touch. His hands skim over the keys, often creating a shimmering sound as if the keyboard were ice and the musician the skater. At the same time, each note is articulated, crystalline."
The Maui News
“Breathtakingly textured, rich and wonderful, this recording (of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition) showcases Hyperion’s world-class style at the keyboard.”
The Absolute Sound
“Hyperion Knight played with intoxicating élan, brilliant dexterity and a shimmering nuance that made his account of the Saint-Saëns concerto worthy to stand alongside the masterful authority of Jeanne-Marie Darré’s classic EMI recording. This was most definitely the work of a Knight in high pianistic attitude.
New York Concert Review, Harris Goldsmith
“Gershwin by Knight could almost serve as a primer for the qualities of rhythmic and dynamic grace…Knight's control of the dynamic line is as compelling as his command of the melodic one."
Stereophile
“I defy you not to smile along with Hyperion as he romps through Irish jigs, Viennese waltzes and his own transcription of the Pachelbel ‘Canon,’ which restores dignity and interest to that overdone staple of Baroque bands.”
The Audio Adventure
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