Ralph van Raat

Last updated

Ralph van Raat (born 1978) is a Dutch classical pianist.

Contents

Biography and career

Pianist and musicologist Ralph van Raat appears as a recitalist in Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States. Augmenting traditional repertoire, he takes special interest in the performance of contemporary classical music. He has worked closely with many composers on the interpretation of their piano works, with John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Tan Dun, György Kurtág, Magnus Lindberg, Arvo Pärt, Frederic Rzewski and Sir John Tavener. Many composers have dedicated their piano compositions to van Raat.

Ralph van Raat performs regularly as a soloist with orchestras including London Sinfonietta, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra and the Dortmunder Philharmoniker. He has worked closely with conductors including Tan Dun, Valery Gergiev, JoAnn Falletta, David Robertson, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Susanna Mälkki, Stefan Asbury and John Adams.

He has performed as a soloist at important festivals including the Gergiev Festival, the BBC Proms, the Festival International de Musique de Besançon, Holland Festival, the Time of Music festival in Viitasaari, Finland, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in the UK, the Berliner Festspiele, the Hong Kong Festival of the Arts and Tanglewood Summer Festival in the United States. He has been given his own concert series at both the Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw of Amsterdam, and Rotterdam's De Doelen.

In 2018, Van Raat performed his début at both New York's Carnegie Hall and the Philharmonie in Paris, both to sold out halls, standing ovations and rave reviews.

Since 2006, Van Raat has had an exclusive contract with Naxos. His first recording for Naxos (the complete piano works by John Adams) received top ratings in several magazines. Van Raat's recording of Arvo Pärt's piano repertoire received a 5/5star rating in BBC Music. Naxos honoured him in 2009 with an Artist's Box and in 2017 with an Artist's Profile.

In addition to winning First Prize at the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition in 1999, Van Raat has won a large number of prizes and awards, including an international Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship, the Philip Morris Arts Award, the Stipend-Prize during the “Internationale Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik” in Darmstadt, the Second Prize as well as the Donemus-Prize (for Contemporary Music) of the Princess Christina Competition, the Elisabeth Everts Prize, the VSCD Classical Music Prize, the Fortis MeesPierson Award of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the Prijs Klassiek (Classics Prize) of the Dutch public broadcaster, NTR. In 2019, he was awarded the VSCD Ovation Prize for a hugely successful concert program featuring works by legendary Dutch composer Louis Andriessen (including a new work dedicated to Van Raat) and the exceedingly difficult solo version of Igor Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps in the composer approved version by Vladimir Leyetchkiss.

Ralph van Raat graduated with honors from both the Conservatory and the University of Amsterdam (musicology). He teaches contemporary piano interpretation at his Alma mater and regularly gives masterclasses and lectures at several European conservatories and for many foundations and universities. Van Raat is a Jury member of the Orléans Concours International.

Ralph van Raat is a Steinway Artist. www.ralphvanraat.com

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Andriessen</span> Dutch composer and pianist (1939–2021)

Louis Joseph Andriessen was a Dutch composer, pianist and academic teacher. Considered the most influential Dutch composer of his generation, he was a central proponent of The Hague school of composition. Although his music was initially dominated by neoclassicism and serialism, his style gradually shifted to a synthesis of American minimalism, jazz and the manner of Stravinsky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esa-Pekka Salonen</span> Finnish orchestral conductor and composer

Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, and music director of the San Francisco Symphony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanna MacGregor</span>

Joanna Clare MacGregor is a British concert pianist, conductor, composer, and festival curator. She is Head of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and a professor of the University of London. She is currently artistic director of the International Summer School & Festival at Dartington Hall.

Jörgen van Rijen is Principal Trombone at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO) in Amsterdam. He is also a founding member of the Dutch trombone ensemble, New Trombone Collective, and Professor of Trombone at the Amsterdam Conservatory.

Frank Scheffer is a Dutch cinematographer and producer of documentary film, mostly known for his work Conducting Mahler (1996) on the 1995 Mahler Festival in Amsterdam with Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti and Simon Rattle.

Ural Philharmonic Orchestra is a professional symphony orchestra based in Yekaterinburg, Russia. The Ural Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1936 by the Russian conductor Mark Paverman as the Orchestra of the Sverdlovsk Radio. The most prominent musicians of the Soviet Union – conductors, soloists and composers – worked with the Orchestra. However, due to the special status of the 'closed city' of Sverdlovsk it was 'hidden' from the rest of the world until 1991 when the city was 'opened', and the Orchestra's professional level quickly became known abroad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornelis Dopper</span> Dutch composer, conductor and teacher (1870–1939)

Cornelis 'Kees' Dopper was a Dutch composer, conductor and teacher.

Sergei Babayan is an Armenian-American pianist. Described by Le Devoir as a "genius", Babayan won many international competitions, including the Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition in 1989 and the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in 1991. He appears as soloist with leading orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester, London Symphony Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, under such conductors as Valery Gergiev, Yuri Temirkanov, Tugan Sokhiev, Neeme Järvi, Rafael Payare, and David Robertson.

Alan Feinberg is an American classical pianist. He has premiered over 300 works by such composers as John Adams, Milton Babbitt, John Harbison, Charles Ives, Steve Reich, and Charles Wuorinen, as well as the premiere of Mel Powell's Pulitzer Prize winning Duplicates. He is an experienced performer of both classical and contemporary music and is well known for recitals that pair old and new music.

Boris Berman is a Russian pianist and pedagogue.

Michel van der Aa is a Dutch composer of contemporary classical music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Blumenthal (pianist)</span>

Daniel Blumenthal is a German-born American pianist.

José Feghali was a Brazilian pianist, who, until his death, was an Artist-in-Residence at Texas Christian University's school of music in piano. He was the Gold Medalist winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1985.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reinbert de Leeuw</span> Dutch conductor (1938–2020)

Lambertus Reiner "Reinbert" de Leeuw was a Dutch conductor, pianist and composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willem Jeths</span> Dutch composer

Willem Jeths is a Dutch classical composer.

Norman Perryman was born in Birmingham, England in 1933, was educated at the Worcester Royal Grammar School, and studied painting and art education at the Birmingham College of Art and Crafts, graduating with Honours in 1954. He emigrated to the Netherlands in 1957, then moved to Switzerland. He was Head of Art at Aiglon College (1967–73) and from 1976–1990 was Chief Examiner for the Visual Arts programme of the International Baccalaureate, designing and developing the Visual Art curriculum and traveling worldwide to give workshops on the role of the arts in education and the relationships of the visual arts and music. He returned to Holland in 1978 and now lives in Amsterdam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Momotenko Levitsky</span> Dutch composer (born 1970)

Alfred Momotenko-Levitsky, also known as Fred Momotenko, is a Dutch composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joep Franssens</span> Dutch composer

Joep Franssens is a Dutch composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seong-Jin Cho</span> South Korean pianist

Seong-Jin Cho is a South Korean pianist. He rose to fame within South Korea and the international classical music world in 2015 after winning the XVII International Chopin Piano Competition, becoming the first South Korean pianist to do so.

Gerard Beljon is a musician and composer from the Netherlands, specialising in chamber and choral music with contemporary resonances. His works have been performed in Austria, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Russia and the United States.

References