Born in Dublin in 1958, Hugh Tinney first came to international recognition by winning the First Prize in two international competitions, the 1983 Pozzoli in Italy and the 1984 Paloma O'Shea in Spain. Since then, he has performed in more than 35 countries throughout Europe, the United States, Latin America and the Far East. Festival engagements have taken him to Belgium, the Czech Republic, Spain, Finland, France, Japan, and the USA. Likewise, he has been broadcast on radio or TV in more than 15 countries. 
In 1987, he was a prize-winner in the Leeds Piano Competition.  Two years later he made his debut at the BBC ‘Proms’ playing Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, and there followed a busy career in the U.K., performing with major orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the Royal Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Royal Liverpool, the Royal Scottish and the BBC National of Wales.  He has been a regular soloist for forty years with the RTÉ (the Irish national broadcaster) National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, including touring with them in the U.K. in 1993 and performing with them at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 1998.  Additionally, he has frequently worked with other Irish orchestras including the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra.  Conductors he has worked with include Simon Rattle, Norman del Mar, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Libor Pešek, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Jacek Kaspryk, Colman Pearce, Bryden Thomson, Proinnsías O’Duinn, Alexander Anissimov, Gerhard Markson, David Brophy, Gavin Maloney, Thierry Fischer, Kenneth Montgomery, and Jaime Martín. He has performed more than sixty different concertos. 
Hugh Tinney's contribution to Irish concert life over the past 35 years has been significant. Highlights include his 1991 Chopin Plus recital series at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin, later repeated in Cork; a second major recital series at IMMA in 1995, focusing on the late sonatas of Schubert. In 1998, he completed a three-year project to perform the complete 21 original Mozart solo piano concertos at Dublin's National Concert Hall with the Orchestra of St. Cecilia. A complete cycle of the Beethoven concertos followed in 1999.  All of these series received the highest plaudits from Irish critics and audiences.  He played 6 different all-Beethoven sonata recitals at the Royal Dublin Society (2000-02), later completing the cycle of all 32 Beethoven sonatas in other venues. What’s more, he has performed the full Beethoven sonata cycle jointly with Philippe Cassard and Joanna MacGregor at Bantry House in 2004.  In January 2003, he gave a sell-out recital in Dublin's National Concert Hall as part of the NCH/Irish Times Celebrity Series.  In November 2008, at the invitation of the Royal Dublin Society, he curated and performed in their Chamber Music Weekend to mark the occasion of his 50th birthday.  
Chamber music partners have included the Borodin, Tokyo, RTÉ Vanbrugh, RTÉ Con Tempo and Vogler Quartets, Steven Isserlis, Julian Rachlin, Jörg Widmann, Bernadette Greevy, Tara Erraught, Catherine Leonard, John Finucane, Carol McGonnell, Finghin Collins, and John O'Conor.  He played every year from 1997 to 2000, and again in 2003, 2007, 2010, and 2012 at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry.  His interest in contemporary Irish music has led to new works commissioned from Raymond Deane and Ian Wilson. He premiered Wilson's Limena in 1999 in an 8-concert tour of Ireland with the Irish Chamber Orchestra.  He was awarded a 2-year bursary by the Arts Council of Ireland to research, perform and record Irish and international contemporary piano music in 2006 and 2007.  In autumn 2010, with assistance from the Arts Council,he commissioned Raymond Deane to write a 40-minute set of 12 pieces, Noctuary; these were premiered in concerts in 2011 and 2013.