Richard Harwood
Encyclopedia
Richard Harwood is also the assumed name of National Front member Richard Verrall
Richard Verrall
Richard Verrall is a former Deputy Chairman of the British National Front , he edited the magazine Spearhead from 1976 to 1980.-National Front career:...

.


Richard Craig Harwood (born 8 August 1979) is a British cellist.

Biography

Richard Harwood was born in Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

 and began learning to play the piano, aged four (teachers included Diana Bell and Joyce Rathbone) and the cello, aged five. He attended Ditcham Park School
Ditcham Park School
Ditcham Park School is an English co-educational, selective, independent school set in the secluded countryside of Hampshire, overlooking the South Downs. It has very large formal grounds, including sports fields, which adjoin several farms and forests; the main section of the school is a Victorian...

. He achieved his Associated Board Grade 8 in cello, aged 8 and in piano, aged 11.

After beginning cello studies with two local teachers, Richard studied with Joan Dickson
Joan Dickson
Joan Dickson was one of the great cello teachers of the twentieth century. She worked primarily in the United Kingdom, and was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London...

 from 1988 until her death in 1994, before continuing with Steven Doane and David Waterman (1994–1999), Heinrich Schiff (1999-2003 at the University of Music and Dramatic Art, Vienna) and Ralph Kirshbaum
Ralph Kirshbaum
Ralph Henry Kirshbaum is an American cellist currently living in Los Angeles. During his career he has performed solos with major orchestras worldwide, won prizes in several international competitions, and recorded extensively....

 (2003-2005 at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester).

He complemented his studies by taking master classes and lessons with Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, KBE , known to close friends as Slava, was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He is widely considered to have been the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of...

, János Starker
János Starker
János Starker |Kingdom of Hungary]]) is a Hungarian-American cellist. Since 1958 he has taught at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he holds the title of Distinguished Professor.- Child prodigy :...

, Steven Isserlis
Steven Isserlis
Steven Isserlis CBE is a British cellist. He is distinguished for his diverse repertoire, distinctive sound and total command of phrasing. He studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and was much influenced by the great iconoclast of Russian cello playing, Daniil Shafran...

, Boris Pergamenschikow, Miklós Perényi
Miklós Perényi
Miklós Perényi is a Hungarian cellist. He was born in Budapest into a musical family and studied at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Musec in Budapest with Ede Banda and Enrico Mainardi. He continued his studies at the Accademia Santa Cecilia, graduating in 1962...

, Valentin Erben (Alban Berg Quartet
Alban Berg Quartet
The Alban Berg Quartett was a string quartet founded in Vienna, Austria in 1970, named after the famous composer Alban Berg.-Members:- Beginnings :...

), William Pleeth, Zara Nelsova, and Ferenc Rados.

Richard made his concerto debut at the age of ten (playing the G minor Kabalevsky Concerto at the Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...

 Hall, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

) and, since then, has gone on to perform concerti in many of Britain's major concert halls, including the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...

, Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...

, St. John's, Smith Square, and St. George's, Brandon Hill. He has collaborated with conductors such as Douglas Bostock, David Parry
David Parry (conductor)
David Parry is an English conductor who is particularly known for his work within the field of opera. Described as "a man of the theatre with whom directors love to work; he is good with singers; he knows the British opera world like the back of his hand...

, En Shao, Shuntaro Sato, and Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...

, and been soloist with numerous orchestras including the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is an English orchestra. Originally based in Bournemouth, the BSO moved its offices to the adjacent town of Poole in 1979....

, The Philharmonia
Philharmonia
The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...

, and the Ural Philharmonic.

Richard made his BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

 debut at the age of thirteen with the Elgar Concerto, which he subsequently performed on a national tour of New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

; he has also recorded Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

.

In addition to concerto performances, Richard has performed a wide range of recital and chamber music programmes. He made his Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

 recital debut in April 1998, and his Purcell Room
Purcell Room
The Purcell Room is a concert and performance venue which forms part of the Southbank Centre, one of central London's leading cultural complexes. It is named after the 17th century English composer Henry Purcell and has 370 seats....

 debut took place in January 1999. Both were with the pianist Julius Drake. Richard has also worked with the pianists Christoph Berner, Gretel Dowdeswell, and Connie Shih. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with the Endellion Quartet, Ida Levin
Ida Levin
Ida Levin is an American concert violinist. Born in Santa Monica, California, Levin began studying the violin at the age of three and made her professional debut performing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the young age of ten. This was followed by a performance for President Reagan and the...

, Guy Ben-Ziony, Chen Halevi and Catherine Leonard, among others. Regularly performing throughout Europe, Richard made his Viennese debut at the Schönbrunn Palace Theatre in 1997.

Contemporary music plays an important role in Richard's life. In January 2002, he took part in the PLG Young Artists' Series on the South Bank and premiered solo works written for him by Dominic Muldowney and Martin Butler. He collaborated with Dominic Muldowney again in 2003, recording the solo cello part to his score for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 Television drama, Holy Cross.

Richard has won numerous awards including the 2004 Pierre Fournier
Pierre Fournier
Pierre Fournier was a French cellist who was called the "aristocrat of cellists," on account of his elegant musicianship and majestic sound....

 Award for 'cellists. In 1992, he became the youngest ever winner of the Audi
Audi
Audi AG is a German automobile manufacturer, from supermini to crossover SUVs in various body styles and price ranges that are marketed under the Audi brand , positioned as the premium brand within the Volkswagen Group....

 Junior Musician Award. In addition, he won the Worshipful Company of Musicians Maisie Lewis Young Artists Award in 2001 and, in 2004, Richard became the first British 'cellist ever to be awarded the title "Bachpreisträger" at the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

.

In 1997, BBC Music Magazine selected him in their worldwide "Who's Who" edition and, in 2000, Richard was entered into the "International Who's Who in Music" as an 'up and coming talent on the brink of worldwide recognition.'

His debut recital recording for EMI Classics
EMI Classics
EMI Classics is a record label of EMI, formed in 1990 in order to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogs for internationally distributed classical music releases....

 was released to critical acclaim in 2007.

Richard plays a cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

 by Francesco Rugeri, dated 1692.

Discography

  • Richard Harwood: Beethoven, Chopin sonatas etc. (EMI Classics Debut, 2007)
  • Preisträgerkonzert - XIV. Internationaler Johann Sebastian Bach Wettbewerb 2004 (MDR / Bach-Archiv Leipzig
    Bach-Archiv Leipzig
    The Bach-Archiv Leipzig or Bach-Archiv is the institution for the documentation and research of life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, where Bach lived from 1723 until his death. Topic of research is also the Bach family, especially their music...

    , 2004)
  • Adiemus
    Adiemus
    -Concept:Each Adiemus album is a collection of song-length pieces featuring harmonised vocal melody against an orchestral background. There are no lyrics as such: instead the vocalists sing syllables and 'words' invented by Jenkins...

     V - 'Vocalise' - Karl Jenkins
    Karl Jenkins
    -Other works:*Adiemus: Live — live versions of Adiemus music*Palladio *Eloise *Imagined Oceans *The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace...

    (EMI, 2003)

External links

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