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 and the Bronze Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1985. He has since appeared as soloist with many of the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus in Germany, 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.
Highlights of his 2009-10 season include return engagements with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Vancouver Symphony and debuts as performer and conductor with the Moscow State Philharmonic. In the United States, he will appear with the Atlanta, Nashville, Alabama, and Columbus Symphonies among others.
Performing on four continents, Mr. Douglas’ recent and upcoming concerto appearances include the London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Ulster Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, National Polish Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio, Munich Radio, RAI Torino, Netherlands Radio Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic and RSB Berlin. In Asia and Australia, his performances include the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony, Malaysian Philharmonic, and the Sydney, West Australian and New Zealand Symphonies, while in North America his recent and upcoming appearances include the Baltimore, Dallas, Cincinnati, Houston, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Seattle, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Colorado Symphonies. His chamber music appearances include recitals in the US, including Scottsdale, Arizona and Miami, Florida in 2009, Toronto, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Japan and South Korea.
Mr. Douglas serves as Artistic Director of the International Piano Festival held at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, the Clandeboye International Festival and the Camerata Ireland at Castletown Series Festival.
Barry Douglas is Music Director of the chamber orchestra Camerata Ireland, which he founded in 1999 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. To celebrate Camerata Ireland’s 10th anniversary, Barry will lead the orchestra in a world tour, with a US tour scheduled for March 2011. The orchestra enjoys a long-term relationship with Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris.
Building on the success of Camerata Ireland, and frequently conducting from the keyboard, Barry is establishing a worldwide reputation as a conductor. In 2008, he began his tenure as one of the chief guest conductors of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. His recent and upcoming conducting debuts include the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields at the Mostly Mozart Festival in London, the Belgrad Philharmonic Orchestra and with I Pommerigi di Milano. Other recent conducting appearances include the Ulster Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In 2008, Barry served as host of RTÉ One's Symphony Sessions, televised in the UK and available on the web. The series of four programs, written by Mr. Douglas, explores music inspired by love, death, nature and power.
Best known for his performances of the large-scale Romantic works including Brahms, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, Barry Douglas 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. In 2009, he performed with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra in honor of Mr. Penderecki’s 75th birthday.
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. In 2008, Sony/BMG released a recording of Rachmaninov Piano Concertos 1 and 3 with Barry Douglas and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra led by the late Evgeny Svetlanov, which was immediately hailed by Classical Source as an "unmissable release". Over the past three years, Douglas recorded the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos with Camerata Ireland, which is now available as a boxed set on Satirino Records. His BMG recording of the Reger Concerto and Strauss Burleske with Marek Janowski and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France was awarded the Diapson d’Or. Upcoming projects include a recital disc of Russian repertoire to be recorded for Sony/BMG.
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. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music where he is Prince Consort Professor of Piano and received honorary Doctorates from Queens University in Belfast, the National University of Ireland in Maynooth outside Dublin and the University of Wyoming.
A native of Ireland, Barry Douglas studied at the Belfast School of Music. Mr. Douglas began conducting at an early age. At the age of 16 he began piano 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, and later studied privately with Maria Curcio and Yvegeny Malinin.
Barry Douglas makes his home in Paris, France and Lurgan, Ireland, where he lives with his wife and three children.
For more information on Barry Douglas, please visit www.barry-douglas.com.
