Hilary Coates is one of the best-established and most respected piano teachers of specialist young musicians in the UK.
She combines her teaching between her long-standing work with some of the most talented specialist young pianists at Wells Cathedral School and her post as Professor of Piano at Trinity College of Music, London. (This follows her period in a similar post at the Guildhall School of Music.)
Hilaryâs professional debut was at the age of nineteen, performing the Grieg Concerto in the Royal Festival Hall on Londonâs Southbank.
She had already gained a full scholarship, age 16, to the Royal Academy of Music from which she graduated with the Academyâs top performance award â the Dip.RAM. She then continued her studies with Ilona Kabos and Maria Curcio.
She was a prizewinner in the finals of the Alfredo Casella International Piano Competition in Naples, as well as in the BBC Manchester Piano Competition. She was distinguished also by the âMusician of the Yearâ Award by the Greater London Arts Association.
She performed extensively for many years as concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber music player both in the UK and on overseas concert tours of France, Italy, South America and Germany.
Her activities now are largely focused on her teaching, and her UK students have had many successes and some have been outright winners in both the BBC Young Musician and the Audi Competitions.
In recent years her work has taken on a more international dimension with masterclasses at conservatoires and universities in Hong Kong, Australia, Vietnam and Ireland, and also at the Van Cliburn Institute in Forth Worth, Texas. For many years she gave UK masterclasses for the Yamaha Music Foundation.