Michael Houstoun
is New Zealand’s most respected and acclaimed classical musician. His commitment to excellence and enthusiasm for the work of contemporary New Zealand composers has seen his path cross with Rattle's numerous times, and has resulted in many of our finest releases.

Michael became interested in the piano when he was a small child and began lessons at the age of 5, and by the age of 18 had won every major competition in New Zealand. He performed abroad for almost a decade before following his heart back home in 1981, where he has lived and worked ever since. He plays from a large repertoire that stretches from JS Bach to the present day, including 40 concertos and chamber music. A strong advocate of New Zealand music, works from Douglas Lilburn to John Psathas regularly feature in his programmes. During the 1990s he concentrated on the music of Beethoven, playing the complete sonatas in five cycles around NZ. He has recorded the cycle twice, most recently in 2013 with Rattle, for which he was awarded the 2014 Classical Album of the Year.

In late 2015 Michael recorded another cherished programme of Beethoven, the great Diabelli Variations. It is a stunning performance, beautifully captured by Rattle's in-house engineer Steve Garden, and produced with great concentration and perception by Kenneth Young. Michael, Steve, and Ken have enjoyed a very fruitful recording partnership since they first worked together on the award-winning INLAND in 2007. They picked up the Best Classical Album Award again in 2012 for LILBURN (a programme of Michael's favourite pieces selected from Douglas Lilburn's piano music), but their most ambitious and widely-acclaimed project was of course the monumental 14-CD set of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas.