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Richard Goode has been hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness, and has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s leading interpreters of Classical and Romantic music.  In regular performances with the major orchestras, recitals in the world’s music capitals, and acclaimed Nonesuch recordings, he has won a large and devoted following.  In an extensive profile in The New Yorker, David Blum wrote: “What one remembers most from Goode’s playing is not its beauty—exceptional as it is—but his way of coming to grips with the composer’s central thought, so that a work tends to make sense beyond one’s previous perception of it…. The spontaneous formulating process of the creator [becomes] tangible in the concert hall.”  According to The New York Times, “It is virtually impossible to walk away from one of Mr. Goode’s recitals without the sense of having gained some new insight, subtly or otherwise, into the works he played or about pianism itself.”

His first recording of the five Beethoven Concertos with Ivan Fisher and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, released in 2009 by Nonesuch Records, was nominated for a Gramophone Magazine “Concerto of the Year” award joining his historic recording of the complete Beethoven Sonatas and equally acclaimed recent recordings of Mozart and Bach.  In reviewing the Beethoven concertos recordings, The London Times wrote: “Goode’s special gift has always been his selfless artistry: his penetrating intellect, warm heart and nimble fingers are entirely placed at the composer’s service.”  The Financial Times called the set: “A landmark recording of the Beethoven concertos.  Goode makes the familiar sound unexpectedly fresh.”

 

Richard Goode's 2012-2013 season includes recitals in some of the world's leading music centers such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and engagements in London, Berlin, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles, in addition to performances and master classes at major universities and conservatories in the U.S. and abroad.  As a soloist playing with an orchestra, he will be both on tour and at Carnegie Hall with Orpheus in the Schumann Concerto, which he will also perform with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Louis Langree.  He will play Mozart with David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich and in the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Bergen Philharmonic.

 

The 2011-2012 season included performances at Carnegie Hall with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra led by Fabio Luisi, performing the Mozart Concerto No. 25, K503; the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel, performing the Mozart Concerto No. 20, K 466; performances in Boston, and a west coast tour with the Boston Symphony; and recitals at Carnegie Hall, as well as in Chicago, Philadelphia, Berkeley, Kansas City, Baltimore, Detroit and at universities around the country. In Europe, Mr. Goode was heard in major series in cities including Birmingham, Budapest, Genoa, Madrid, Paris, and recitals in London's Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall.

 

In recent seasons, Mr. Goode curated a multi-event residency as one of South Bank Centre’s Artist-in-Residence including collaborative performances with pianist Jonathan Biss. This followed his ‘engrossing’ (The New York Times) eight-event Carnegie Hall Perspectives.  This celebration of Mr. Goode’s artistry also included master classes within the City’s three leading conservatories – Juilliard, Manhattan and Mannes – and two illustrated talks on his Perspectives repertoire at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Richard Goode was honored for his contributions to music with the first ever Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance, which culminated in a two-season residency at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. In May 2010, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

A native of New York, Richard Goode studied with Elvira Szigeti and Claude Frank, with Nadia Reisenberg at the Mannes College of Music, and with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute.  He has won many prizes, including the Young Concert Artists Award, First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition, the Avery Fisher Prize, and a Grammy Award.  His remarkable interpretations of Beethoven came to national attention when he played all five concerti with the Baltimore Symphony under David Zinman, and his performance of the complete sonata cycle at New York’s 92nd Street Y and Kansas City’s Folly Theater.

In addition to his most recent release, Richard Goode, an exclusive Nonesuch artist, has made more than two-dozen recordings, including Mozart solo works as well as Concerti with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas, the complete Partitas by J.S. Bach, and solo and chamber works of Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Busoni and George Perle.  Goode is the first American-born pianist to have recorded the complete Beethoven Sonatas, which were nominated for a Grammy Award and are universally acclaimed.

With soprano Dawn Upshaw, he has recorded Goethe Lieder of Schubert, Schumann, and Hugo Wolf for Nonesuch.  The four recordings of Mozart Concerti with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra were received with wide critical acclaim, including many “Best of the Year” nominations and awards. In addition, his recording of the Brahms sonatas with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman won a Grammy Award.  Mr. Goode’s first, long-awaited Chopin recording was also chosen Best of the Month by Stereo Review and described as “absolutely magical . . . glorious playing.”

Over the last seasons, Richard Goode has appeared with many of the world’s greatest orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Levine, Haitink, and Ozawa; the Chicago Symphony under Eschenbach; the Cleveland Orchestra under Zinman; the San Francisco Symphony under Blomstedt and Alan Gilbert; the New York Philharmonic with Sir Colin Davis; the Toronto Symphony with Peter Oundjian; and the St. Louis Symphony under David Robertson.  He has also appeared with the Orchestre de Paris, made his Musikverein debut with the Vienna Symphony and has been heard throughout Germany in sold-out concerts with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields under Sir Neville Marriner.

Mr. Goode serves with Mitsuko Uchida as co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Marlboro, VT.  He is married to the violinist Marcia Weinfeld, and, when the Goodes are not on tour, they and their collection of some 5,000 volumes live in New York City.