David Hewitt was born in Oldham in the North West of England. He began playing the piano at the age of 4 and attained Grade 8 with Distinction at the age of 11.
He studied at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, where he studied piano with Peter Lawson. During his time at Chetham’s he performed in several master classes with the likes of Alfred Brendel, Imogen Cooper and Stephen Hough. He was the winner of the Chetham’s Association prize and the John Michael Asquith Memorial Prize.
Subsequently, he studied piano at the Birmingham Conservatoire with Professor Malcom Wilson, Gordon Fergus-Thompson and Peter Donohoe. Here, he enjoyed success in a number of piano competitions including the Mozart, Beethoven and Russian Piano Concerto Competitions, the Beryl Chempin Post-Graduate Piano Competition, the Beethoven Piano Competition and the Piano Accompaniment Competition.
David’s specialist area has been developed in Contemporary music, with an interest in music by American composers. He has performed many recitals and concertos with various orchestras and won acclaim with his recitals of American Piano Sonatas, namely those by Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Charles Ives and Elliott Carter, performing in Cologne, Florence and Salzburg.
He has worked alongside conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Mark Elder and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the Birmingham Royal Ballet and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
An interest in teaching began quite early on and he combined his performance work with teaching in the Junior Department at the Birmingham Conservatoire, and later as a classroom teacher of CCSE and A-Level music at Arnold School in Blackpool.
His work as an accompanist played an important part in his early career and performances include those for BBC Radio, the European Youth Orchestra and on the South Bank in London in the Purcell Room.
For many years David was involved in rehearsing and performing in regional shows such as Evita, Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods, all of which were successful in gaining multiple NODA awards.
He is now based in Fleetwood in the North west of England where he is much sought-after as a freelance pianist and accompanist. He tours in the UK and abroad as an examiner & adjudicator, having examined in tours of Ireland, Spain, Cyprus,
India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Australia.
His examining experience extends over fifteen years.