Charles Richard-Hamelin stands out on the international music scene as a “highly sensitive” pianist (Gramophone), driven by “a great depth of feeling without the slightest condescension” (Le Devoir). He is recognized as “fluent, multifaceted and tonally seductive… a technician of...
Charles Richard-Hamelin stands out on the international music scene as a “highly sensitive” pianist (Gramophone), driven by “a great depth of feeling without the slightest condescension” (Le Devoir). He is recognized as “fluent, multifaceted and tonally seductive… a technician of exceptional elegance and sophistication” (BBC Music Magazine).
In 2015, he received the Silver Medal at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw and the Krystian Zimerman Prize for best performance of a sonata. He also won Second Prize at the Concours musical international de Montréal and Third Prize and the Special Prize for best performance of a Beethoven sonata at the Seoul International Music Competition, in South Korea.
Charles Richard-Hamelin is in great demand as a guest performer at the world’s greatest classical music festivals, including the International Piano Festival of La Roque d’Anthéron in France, the Prague Spring International Music Festival, the International “Chopin and his Europe” Festival in Warsaw, the Festival International de Lanaudière and the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. He has worked with renowned conductors, including Kent Nagano, Vasily Petrenko, Jacek Kaspszyk, Aziz Shokhakimov, Peter Oundjian, Jacques Lacombe, Fabien Gabel, Carlo Rizzi, Alexander Prior, Christoph Campestrini, Lan Shui, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, Charles Olivieri-Munroe, Howard Shelley, Antoni Wit and Jonathan Cohen. He has also performed as a soloist with famous orchestras around the world, including the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Québec, Toronto, Edmonton, Warsaw, Singapore and Hiroshima symphony orchestras, as well as the Orchestre Métropolitain, Les Violons du Roy, I Musici de Montréal, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, OFUNAM (Mexico City), the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra, the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra and Sinfonia Varsovia.
Charles Richard-Hamelin has recorded five albums to this day, all published on the Analekta label. In 2015, he first recorded acclaimed performances of Chopin’s last works. Launched in 2016, his second album brings together works by Beethoven, Enescu and Chopin, recorded in concert at the Palais Montcalm in Québec City. His discography then was enriched by two more CDs, one devoted to the first part of a complete collection of Beethoven violin and piano sonatas, recorded with the solo violinist of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Andrew Wan. His latest offering, devoted to Chopin’s two piano concertos, was recorded live in concert at Montréal’s Maison symphonique with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under the direction of Kent Nagano. His most recent collaboration with Les Violons du Roy leads to the publication of his latest album: Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos 22 and 24, under the direction of Jonathan Cohen. These albums received awards and enthusiastic reviews from the leading music critics.
This remarkable pianist shapes each phrase with careful attention, then links it to the text one in a way that tells a compelling story from beginning to end. […] If there is one defining characteristic of Richard-Hamelin’s playing it’s how he wields the tools of musical rhetoric – stretching time by slightly slowing down and speeding up, and playing with the silences between notes – to ensure that the narrative tension never goes out of the piece he is playing.
The young pianist’s strength, splendour and sense for emphasis were equally captivating as his enormous ability to convey dream, poetry and longing.
Charles Richard-Hamelin is clearly a musician-pianist: fluent, multi-faceted and tonally seductive […] Melodic inflection is curvaceous, natural and discreetly sensuous.
Richard-Hamelin has bold, original ideas about the music he plays, the emotional resevoirs to back them up and the technical equipment to convey them without distraction.
