Hailed as "a supremely talented and genuine artist", Barry Douglas is one of the most versatile and brilliant pianists of today. Active as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor and festival director, his artistry has been acclaimed by critics and audiences worldwide.
Barry Douglas first won international recognition as the winner of the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow in 1986. He has since appeared as soloist with many of the world's foremost orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus in Germany, the orchestras of Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland and Los Angeles in the US, the NHK and Tokyo Symphonies in Japan, the Israel Philharmonic and all the major London orchestras. He has collaborated with many eminent conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Colin Davis, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson Thomas and Mariss Jansons.
Recent and upcoming performances include appearances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in the US and Europe, the Guangzhou Symphony, the Malaysian Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw, and the Cincinnati, Houston, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Vancouver, West Australian and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and recitals in the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Australia and South Korea. He served as Artistic Director of the International Piano Festival held at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester in March 2006. The 07/08 season will include a US tour with his chamber orchestra, Camerata Ireland.
Best known for his performances of the large-scale Romantic works including Brahms, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, he is also a champion of twentieth and twenty-first century composers such as Reger, Britten, Corigliano and Penderecki. Works premiered by Mr. Douglas include Penderecki's Piano Concerto Resurrection, which he first performed in Warsaw in 2002 at the behest of the composer. Other highlights of recent seasons include his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and concerts with the Dallas Symphony, the Ulster Orchestra, the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the Sydney Symphony, Frankfurt Radio, Munich Radio, RAI Torino, Netherlands Radio Symphony and several UK appearances with the Halle Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Bournemouth Symphony, the BBC Philharmonic and BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He also toured Japan with the Deutsches Kammerorchester, Europe and the US appearing in premiere recital halls in Dublin, Moscow, Naples, Palermo, St. Petersburg, Seville, Torino, and Zagreb, as well as a series of North American duo recitals with acclaimed violinist Chee-Yun.
Sought after as a chamber musician, he has shared the stage with numerous acclaimed artists, such as Cho-Liang Lin, Lynn Harrell, Gary Hoffmann, Andres Diaz and the Tokyo, Ysaye and Guarneri String Quartets.
Mr. Douglas has received exceptional acclaim as a recording artist. His growing discography includes works of Beethoven, Brahms, Britten, Corigliano, Debussy, Liszt, Penderecki, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Reger and Tchaikovsky. His BMG recording of the Reger Concerto and StraussBurleske with Marek Janowski and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France was awarded the Diapson d'Or. His current recording projects include the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos with Camerata Ireland on Satirino Records. The first recording, released in 2005, featured Maestro Douglas performing Beethoven Piano Concertos No. 2 & No. 4. The CD was hailed by Audiophile Audition as "music making of the highest order", with Gramophone praising the group as "Ireland's best". Of the second release, Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 5, Fanfare Magazine said, "Douglas plays and leads superbly; and for an ensemble formed as recently as Camerata Ireland, execution is highly polished and well nigh perfect." The orchestra will complete the full cycle of Beethoven Piano Concerto recordings with the release of Piano Concerto No. 3 and Triple in the Fall of 2007, at which time the three discs will be available in a box set on the Satirino label. The Beethoven cycle is scheduled to be followed by a series of albums of Mozart Piano Concertos.
Prior to winning the Gold Medal in the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, where Mr. Douglas had the distinction of being the only non-Russian since Van Cliburn in 1958 to have won the award outright, he was awarded the Bronze Medal at the Van Cliburn Competition in Texas in 1985 and the top prize in the Santander Paloma O'Shea Competition in Spain. He is also the recipient of an Emmy award. In 2002, he received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year's Honours List for services to music. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music where he is Prince Consort Professor of Piano and received an honorary Doctorate from Queens University of Belfast.
A native of Ireland, Barry Douglas is Music Director of the chamber orchestra Camerata Ireland, which he founded in 2001 to bring the most outstanding Irish musicians together from all over the world to celebrate Ireland and to provide a showcase for exceptionally talented young Irish musicians. Mr. Douglas began conducting at an early age, leading choirs and orchestras in Belfast. He has studied with such eminent conductors as Jerzy Semkov and Marek Janowski. Recent conducting appearances include the Ulster Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Barry Douglas studied at the Belfast School of Music. At the age of 16 he began lessons with Felicitas LeWinter, who inspired Barry to become a pianist. He was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied with John Barstow. He then studied privately with Maria Curcio, herself a pupil of Austrian pianist Arthur Schnabel, and went on to study with the Russian pianist Yvegeny Malinin in Paris.
Barry Douglas makes his home in Paris, France and Lurgan, Ireland, where he lives with his wife and three young children.
For more information on Barry Douglas, please visit http://www.barrydouglas.com/.
