Raymond Clarke

Raymond Clarke was born in Bournemouth, England, in 1963, and held an academic exhibition at Selwyn College, Cambridge University, where he obtained his MA. He studied piano with Ryszard Bakst at the RNCM from 1985-87, and made his London South Bank Centre début in March 1988, a recital described by Music and Musicians as ‘truly a historic performance’ and which according to the critic of The Times ‘simply left one in dazed admiration.’

Since then Raymond has been an active recitalist, and has appeared as piano soloist in over forty works with orchestra, ranging from Mozart’s concerti to those by Rachmaninov (No. 3), Bartok (No. 2) & Prokofiev (Nos. 1, 2, 3 & 5) plus major concertante works such as Scriabin’s Prometheus and Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie. His radio broadcasts have featured repertoire ranging from Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 in C Minor Op. 111 to Michael Tippett’s Fourth Sonata and Robert Simpson’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Two of his commercial CDs have been chosen by Gramophone magazine’s annual ‘Critics’ Choice’ retrospective as being among the best releases on any label.

Raymond teaches piano at the Music Departments of Bristol University and Cardiff University. He is also editor of The New Shostakovich, a full-length study of the composer published by Pimlico with a foreword by Vladimir Ashkenazy. His two recital programmes offered for the 2017-18 concert season are as follows:

Mozart: Sonata in F major, K533/494
Elliott Carter: Night Fantasies
Rachmaninov: Sonata no. 1 in D minor, Op. 28

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Fauré: Theme and Variations in C sharp minor, Op. 73
Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a theme by Handel, Op. 24
Messiaen: Le Merle bleu (no. 3 from ‘Catalogue d’oiseaux’)
Rachmaninov: Sonata no. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 36 (original version)