Mishka Rushdie Momen — Pianist

“Mishka Rushdie Momen plays the piano extraordinarily well, but it is the purity and depth of her musical feeling that impress me most. She has the rare ability to communicate the essential meaning of whatever she plays.”

- Richard Goode

Hailed as ​“one of the most thoughtful and sensitive of British pianists” (The Times), Mishka Rushdie Momen captivates audiences with her refined and expressive playing. 

Mishka Rushdie Momen’s wide repertoire focuses on Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann, whilst reaching back to Gibbons and Rameau. Committed to performing new music, Mishka Rushdie Momen has commissioned works by Nico Muhly and Vijay Iyer, and premiered An Inviting Object by Héloïse Werner at the Lucerne Summer Festival in 2022. 

Recent and upcoming concerto highlights include debuts with The Royal Danish Opera, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Ulster Orchestra. Further orchestral engagements to date include City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, Orchestre National d’Ile de France, Britten Sinfonia and play/​directing Mozart with Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, working with Dinis Sousa, Anu Tali, Peter Whelan, Jac van Steen, Case Scaglione and Natalia Ponomarchuk. 

Rushdie Momen’s recital highlights include performances at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Lucerne Festival, Tonhalle Zurich, Wigmore Hall, Antwerp’s deSingel, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Leeds Piano Competition and, in the US, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Phillips Collection in Washington DC, New York’s 92Y, Carnegie Hall, Portland Piano and The Maestro Foundation in Santa Monica.  In the past and upcoming seasons recitals include debuts in Tokyo, Vancouver, Mexico City, at the Aldeburgh Festival, Princeton University, and at the re-opening festival of the Frick Collection in New York.

Equally at home as a chamber musician, Rushdie Momen’s chamber partners include Ian Bostridge, Mark Padmore, Joshua Bell, Midori, Angela Hewitt, Steven Isserlis, Timothy Ridout and Zlatomir Fung, with festival performances including the Heidelberger-Frühling Festival, the Rheingau Festival, Blanco y Negro Festival in Mexico City, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Hindsgavl, Chipping Campden, Trasimeno Festival, the Casals Forum in Kronberg, and the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove.

Rushdie Momen’s latest release Reformation (Hyperion, 2024) presents the works of William Byrd, John Bull, Orlando Gibbons and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, performed on the modern piano. The album was described in The Times’ selection of the best releases of 2024 as “a triumph”, as “quietly beguiling” (The Guardian) , “performed with thrilling exuberance and subtlety” (The Spectator), topped the Classical Charts in July 2024 and was chosen as a Classic FM Discovery of the Week.  The album also won a Critics’ Circle Award in September 2025.  

Her debut solo recording, Variations, was released in October 2019 by SOMM Recordings, featuring works by Robert and Clara Schumann, Brahms, and Mendelssohn. Mishka Rushdie Momen was The Times Arts critics’ chosen nominee in the field of classical music for their 2021 Breakthrough Award, given by Sky Arts and The South Bank Show, who profiled her for an episode of the programme broadcast in July 2021  

Mishka Rushdie Momen studied with Joan Havill and Imogen Cooper at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She also studied periodically with Richard Goode, and at the Kronberg Academy with Sir András Schiff, who has presented her in recital and orchestral dates across the USA and Europe. Mishka Rushdie Momen’s studies at the Kronberg Academy were generously funded by the Henle Foundation.

 Reformation : A new album on hyperion

Available on all streaming platforms, for download, or as a CD

Reformation was no. 1 in the Specialist Classical Charts in July 2024, Album of the Week on BBC Radio 3, and Discovery of the Week on Classic FM