Sir Stephen Andrew Gill Hough CBE (/ˈhʌf/;[1] born 22 November 1961) is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer.

[2] Hough was born in Heswall (then in Cheshire) on the Wirral Peninsula, and grew up in Thelwall, where he began piano lessons at the age of five.

At the age of 12 he suffered what he has described as a "mini-nervous breakdown", triggered by a mugging incident, which resulted in him taking almost a year off school.

He has studied with Heather Slade-Lipkin, Gordon Green, Adele Marcus, Martin Canin,[7] and Derrick Wyndham.

[8] In 2009, members of the Berlin Philharmonic premiered Hough's trio for piccolo, contrabassoon and piano (Was mit den Traenen geschieht) at the Philharmonie.

In 2012, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Choir gave the world premiere of the orchestrated version of his Missa Mirabilis.

In 2020, Hough's essay collection, Rough Ideas, won the Royal Philharmonic Society Award in the Storytelling Category.

At the 2024 Last Night of the Proms, Hough accompanied soprano Angel Blue in his own arrangement of two spirituals and was also the soloist in Saint-Saëns's Egyptian Concerto, followed by an encore of his own fantasia on "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".

Hough is also known for championing lesser-known composers considered outside the standard repertoire, such as Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Xaver Scharwenka, York Bowen, and Federico Mompou.

In 2017, Pentatone-Oxingale Records released an album commemorating the inaugural opening of the Tippet Rise Festival, featuring Hough, Christopher O'Riley, and Matt Haimovitz, among others.

[21] In 2018, Sylph Editions published his first novel, The Final Retreat, which explores the inner world of a priest dealing with sex addiction and religious despair.

17 in A-flat, Rachmaninoff's recording of Kreisler's Liebesleid, Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven, the Kyrie eleison from Bach's Mass in B minor, the third movement of Alban Berg's Lyric Suite, his own sonata for cello and piano left hand ("Les adieux"), and Bird Songs at Eventide by Eric Coates.

His book choice was a bilingual edition of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, and his luxury item was a panama hat.

Stephen Hough says his assumption of Australian citizenship was in part a tribute to his father, who wanted to return to the land of his birth but was unable to do so before his death in 1980 at the age of 54.

[28] Hough was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to music.