Malaysian pianist Magdalene Ho came to international attention after winning the Clara Haskil Piano Competition in 2023. Formerly a pupil of Patsy Toh at the Purcell School, she currently studies with Dmitri Alexeev at the Royal College of Music on a full scholarship. This season’s highlights include concerto performances with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, SWR Symphonieorchester along with recitals at the Fränkisches-Musiktage Alzenau, Teatime Classics in the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, “Concerts J. S. Bach” Lutry and a debut at Teatro alla Scala in Milan. In summer 2024, she was featured by Jed Distler in International Piano Magazine’s series “One to Watch”.
Magdalene Ho was born in 2003 and started learning the piano at the age of four. In 2013, she began studying in the UK. In 2015, she received the ABRSM Sheila Mossman Prize and Silver Award. In 2018, she made her concerto debut playing Mendelssohn’s first Piano Concerto with the Oxford Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Max. As part of a prize won at the PIANALE piano festival in Fulda, Germany, she released an album of Bach and Messiaen works in 2019. She also had a composition shortlisted by the BBC Young Composer competition in the same year. She was a finalist at the Düsseldorf Schumann Competition 2023 and was awarded the Joan Chissell Schumann Prize for Piano at the Royal College of Music a few months later.
In September 2023, Magdalene Ho won the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Vevey along with receiving the Audience Prize, Young Critics’ Prize and Children’s Corner Prize. In November 2024, she won the International German Piano Award.
Last year, Magdalene performed chamber music concerts with such artists as Simon Trpčeski, Daniel Müller-Schott, Pierre Genisson, Noa Wildschut or Marc Coppey. Since 2024, she is mentored by the Vevey Spring Classic and in connection with the Festival she will be performing this season with Veronika Eberle, Maxim Rysanov, Daniel Müller-Schott, Dietrich Henschel as well as Orchestra dell’Accademia Teatro alla Scala under Wilson Hermanto.
Magdalene has been studying with Dmitri Alexeev at the RCM since September 2022, where she is a Gordon Calway Stone Scholar. She is also sponsored by the Weir Award via the Keyboard Charitable Trust.
“While it’s hard to know where Magdalene Ho will be in 10 or 20 years, her passion for music, her commitment to her craft, her recreative brilliance and the communicative power beneath her modest stage demeanour all augur well for a successful and fulfilling career and life in music.”
Jed Distler, Gramophone
