Steinway Piano Series: Sophie Hutchings at Royal Albert Hall

Australian pianist and composer Sophie Hutchings performs tracks from her latest album in the Elgar Room as part of our Steinway Piano Series.

Following on from Echoes in the Valley, which reached the impressive milestone of becoming the #1 classical album in the UK in 2021, Sophie Hutchings continues her incredible journey with new LP A World Outside - a work of spacious, hypnotic beauty, and a musical travelogue inspired by a road trip through Australia's mighty Northern Territory, beginning in tropical Darwin and going deep into the arid Red Heart.

Rich with emotion and feeling, texture and contrast, as propulsive and powerful as it is elegant and intimate, A World Outside is an impressionistic take on a wide, brown land.

Piano notes flow, pause and surge, variously blending with strings, synths, percussion and field recordings, and features from First Nations artists, revered Yolgnu songman Rrawun Maymuru and rising Larrakia diva, Lena Kellie.

An avid surfer and deep lover of the outdoors, Sophie draws inspiration from the beauty of the natural world and the expansive landscape of her native Australia. She’s known for compositions that sway from the disarmingly spare and elegant to the romantic and epic – all expressing a distinct, exquisite fragility and intimacy.

Sought after as a composer and pianist, Sophie has been involved with a number of films (most recently Baby Teeth and True Spirit), has toured internationally through Japan and Europe, and opened for artists such as Olafur Arnalds, Hauschka, Federico Albanese and Lambert.