MF 8:00 - 10:00
Roger Woodward rose to international prominence in prestigious collaborations with Messiaen, Boulez, Barraqué, Stockhausen, Cage, Feldman, Takemitsu, Donatoni, Xenakis and Pärt, et al. Such collaborations were recorded by BBC and French Radio and Television and by the EMI, Decca and RCA recording companies, to launch a major career as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Philharmonia and New York Philharmonic under such distinguished conductors as Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Witold Rowicki and Kurt Masur, et al. He directed international festivals in the UK, Austria, France and Australia.
As a chamber musician he is the frequent partner of the Alexander String Quartet, with whom he performs and records, including the piano quintets of Brahms and Schumann this season in New York and San Francisco. Their recording of the Shostakovich Piano Quintet for the Foghorn label received favorable reviews and a recording for Celestial Harmonies was made of the Chopin F-minor Concerto and C-major Beethoven Piano Quartet WoO47 to be released in early 2010. At the invitation of the late Sviatoslav Richter he also performed with the Arditti String Quartet at La Grange de Meslay, and frequently performed at the festival d’automne à Paris and BBC Promenade Concerts. In January, 2009, he premiered the sixty- five-minute collection of twelve Etudes by the contemporary German composer Peter Michael Hamel, at the Gasteig, Munich for the Bavarian Academy of Arts and Sciences and recorded music by early twentieth-century Russian composers including Stanchinsky, Obukhov, Roslavets, Mosolov, Pasternak and Aleksandr and Julian Skryabin..
In 2008 he was awarded the prestigious German Critics Prize for his Celestial Harmonies recording of Bach C-minor and E-minor Partitas and was a previous recipient of the Goethe Prize and Diapaison d’Or by German and French critics for recordings of works dedicated to him by Morton Feldman. Current recordings for Celestial Harmonies include the Chopin Nocturnes, Peter Michael Hamel’s Vom Klang des Lebens and Bach Partitas in C minor, E minor and the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor. In 2009, Woodward’s performances of the two books of Debussy Préludes were released to enthusiastic reviews by the German critics that described his playing as eclipsing the performances of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. In September, 2009, Celestial Harmonies will issue his recording of J.S. Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Clavier.
He is an esteemed pedagogue in Europe and North America, frequent member of international competitions, is resident at the San Francisco State University, School of Music, recipient of the Polish Order of Merit, Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and a Companion of the Order of Australia.
