Joan Havill

Joan Rosalie Havill is a concert pianist and piano tutor, currently serving as Senior Professor of Piano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Having played with many leading orchestras and tutored dozens of award-winning students, Havill has gained worldwide recognition.

Early life Joan Havill was born in Wellington, New Zealand. She is a cousin of the New Zealand first-class cricketer Philip Havill. She began her musical studies giving concerts and broadcasts from early childhood. She moved to the United Kingdom to attend London's Royal College of Music, where she studied with the celebrated English pianist, Cyril Smith, and won several of the College’s most prestigious prizes. During the 1960s, British Arts Council Scholarships sponsored studies firstly with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and later in London with the Hungarian pianists Ilona Kabos and Louis Kentner. Havill made her Wigmore Hall debut in 1966,

Since 1980, Havill has been a professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, and in recent years has gained worldwide recognition as a teacher. Her students have featured amongst the major prize winners of many leading international piano competitions, including the Chopin Competition (Warsaw), Van Cliburn, Leeds, Scottish International, Royal Overseas League, Maria Canals, Montreal, Gina Bacchauer, Hamamatsu, Honens, Maria Callas, Marguerite Long, William Kapell and the Busoni. They include Paul Lewis, Sa Chen, Tom Poster, Lucy Parham, Gareth Owen, Mihai Ritivoiu, Misako Osada, Andrew Brownell, Cordelia Williams, James Sherlock and Serhiy Salov. In 1986 Joan Havill was made a Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and in 1996 she was given the title of Senior Professor of the Piano Department. She gives masterclasses regularly in England and abroad and is a well-known adjudicator.

Personal life In 1964, Havill married Anthony Herschel Hill, a distinguished composer, in Kensington, London.