Richard Egarr

Richard Egarr

conductor/fortepiano

Richard Egarr is one of the most versatile musicians around. He has worked with all types of keyboards, performing repertoire ranging from 15th century organ music to Berg and Maxwell Davies on modern piano. He is in great demand as a soloist and chamber musician, as well as a conductor.

Richard Egarr enjoyed his musical training as a choirboy at York Minster, at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, and as organ scholar at Clare College Cambridge. His studies with Gustav and Marie Leonhardt further inspired his work in the field of historical performance.

As a conductor, Richard Egarr has presented a wide range of repertoire, from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion to John Taverner’s Ikon of Light. He directs specialised ensembles and modern orchestras alike. In 2006, he succeeded Christopher Hogwood as Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music. Richard has directed many oratorios and operas, including Messiah, Esther, Acis & Galatea, Alcina, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, Athalia and Alexander’s Feast by Handel; Haydn’s The Creation, Purcell’s Fairy Queen and Dido & Aeneas, Telemann’s St Matthew Passion and Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Bach’s B minor Mass and St. Matthew Passion (also in a staged version at Glyndebourne). His guest conductings include collaborations with the Residentie Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Arnhem Gelders Orkest. Next season, Richard will conduct Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Brussels Philharmonic, a programme dedicated to Stokowski with the Residentie Orchestra, a Bach programme with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and a classical programme with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Richard has given many solo performances throughout Europe, Japan and the USA (with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Goldberg Variations). He has appeared as orchestral soloist with the English Concert, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Orchestra of the 18th Century, the Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble. Richard has earned a great reputation as a chamber musician, also thanks to longstanding relationship with violinist Andrew Manze.

Richard Egarr records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi USA. His solo output comprises works by Frescobaldi, Gibbons, Couperin, Purcell, Froberger, Mozart and J.S. Bach (Goldberg Variations and Well-Tempered Clavier Book I). He has an impressive list of award winning recordings with violinist Andrew Manze, including Sonatas from Bach, Biber, Rebel, Pandolfi, Corelli, Handel, Mozart and Schubert. With the Academy of Ancient Music he has recorded J.S. Bach’s harpsichord concertos and Brandenburg Concertos. In the Handel year 2009 they completed a 7 CD series of Handel discs including the instrumental music Op. 1, 2 and 5, the Concerti grossi Op. 3 (which won a Gramophone Award in 2007) and the Organ Concertos Op. 4 (MIDEM Award and Edison Award 2009) and Op. 7.

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From exhilarating concertos to delicate chamber works, from mainstream Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms to the rarefied worlds of Messiaen, Tippett and Alkan, Steven Osborne is at home with the widest range of styles and his carefully crafted recital programmes and idiomatic approach to contrasting works are both publicly and critically acclaimed.

Concerto performances take Steven Osborne to orchestras all over the world including recent visits to the NHK Symphony, Berlin Symphony, Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Munich Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, Salzburg Mozarteum, Residentie Orkest, Australian Chamber Orchestra, and the NDR Sinfonieorchester Hannover. With these orchestras he has enjoyed collaborations with conductors including Christoph von Dohnanyi, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Evgeny Svetlanov, Sir Charles Mackerras, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Andrew Litton, Alan Gilbert, Vassily Sinaisky, Ingo Metzmacher and Jukka-Pekka Saraste.

In the UK he works regularly with the major orchestras, especially with the Philharmonia, City of Birmingham Symphony and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestras. His concerts are frequently broadcast by the BBC and he performs every year at the Wigmore Hall. He has made seven appearances at the Proms, most recently in July 2007, receiving unanimous praise from critics for his performance of the Britten Piano Concerto which he subsequently recorded for Hyperion.

Steven Osborne is a renowned recitalist and has performed in many of the world’s prestigious venues including the Konzerthaus Vienna, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Philharmonie Berlin, Musikhalle Hamburg, Palais des Beaux Arts Brussels, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Kennedy Center Washington and Carnegie Hall in New York.

He begins the 2008/9 season continuing the celebration of Messiaen’s centenary, and as a leading interpreter of the composer gives recitals of the complete Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jésus throughout France and later in London (Wigmore Hall) and Newcastle (The Sage Gateshead). Amongst this season’s concerto performances include Shostakovich 1 with the NHK Symphony, Brahms 2 with the Royal Scottish National and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras, Mozart No 27 in Bb K595 with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields at the Barbican and also on tour with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Turangalîla with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Iceland Symphony and Bern Symphony Orchestras. In addition he continues the tour of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with performances at the Wigmore Hall, Birmingham Town Hall and in Lisbon with chamber music partners Alban Gerhardt, Viviane Hagner and Kari Kriikku.

Steven Osborne records regularly for Hyperion. His CD of Messiaen’s complete Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jésus was met with exceptional praise and was nominated for both a Gramophone Award and a Schallplattenpreis in Germany. Summer 2006 saw the release of Debussy’s complete Preludes which was selected by Gramophone as “Editor’s Choice”. Other recordings include solo works by Alkan and Liszt Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, both of which were also selected as “Editor’s Choice” in Gramophone and solo works by the contemporary Russian composer Kapustin which was also nominated for a Schallplattenpreis. Most recently released to critical acclaim is a double CD of works by Tippett, and his much awaited CD of Britten’s works for piano and orchestra is released in September.

Born in Scotland in 1971, Steven Osborne studied with Richard Beauchamp at St. Mary's Music School in Edinburgh and Renna Kellaway at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He won first prize at the Naumburg International Piano Competition (New York) and the Clara Haskil Competition.

For further information please also visit www.stevenosborne.com 2008/9

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