BIOGRAPHY

After having had a junior career as a tennis player, Hugo decided to start playing piano at the age of 20 years old. Together with the help of Bertrand Massei he was admitted in the highest degree cycle at the Strasbourg Conservatory within one year. He improved his piano skills in the class of Michel Gaechter and after 3 years of classes, he obtained his diploma (Diplôme d’études musicales) with honors. After having met Pascal Nemirovski during various masterclasses, he continued working with him the year after. As a source of inspiration, Pascal Nemirovski became like a mentor to him and offered guidance to be admitted at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in the class of Pierre Goy. He obtained his Bachelor in June 2017 and thereafter went to Rotterdam to do a Master’s degree at the Codarts Conservatory. In September 2019 he commenced his Postgraduate degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Birmingham in the class of Pascal Nemirovski. Hugo finished his studies  in July 2020 at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire with "honours". Throughout the entire course of his studies, Hugo received masterclasses from many famous pianists like Jean-Claude vanden Eynden, Claudius Tanski and Imogen Cooper. Additionally, he has played many concerts in France, Switzerland and the Netherlands, and was selected to play the 6th sonata of Prokofiev for Boris Berman.
In 2025 Hugo was admitted to a distance PhD programme at Stellenbosch University, where he is conducting practice-based research on the evolution of Prokofiev’s 'new simplicity' and the (re-)interpretation of his 9th piano sonata. He has the opportunity to work under the supervision of Dr. Maria Razumovskaya (Guildhall School of Music and Drama / Oxford University) and Nina Schumann (Stellenbosch University).

More recently, Hugo has been awarded a grant by the Oleg Prokofiev Trust.