Roger Woodward’s repertoire embraces all styles and periods with currently over one hundred recordings and videos for DGG, Decca, EMI, RCA, BMG, Warners, ABC Classics, Etcetera Records BV, Polskie Nagrania, CPO, Unicorn, and most recently Celestial Harmonies BV. In October, 2006, Celestial Harmonies’ release of the Chopin’s Nocturnes was reviewed in Frankfurt’s Musik an sich… by Sven Kerkhoff:
“The complete recording of Chopin’s Nocturnes has no equal. Woodward approaches them with great gentleness. Virtuosic tinkering with the keyboard is foreign to him. His concentrated interpretation is well thought out, now and then pensive and contains embellishments of astonishing yet never conceited liberties that demonstrate how strongly and in what a breathtakingly modern way Chopin has worked with sound colours. Ethereal sound constructions rise and dissolve like phantastic dreamscapes. But those landscapes are of such ravishing beauty and the farewell from these intangible constructions so painful, that one has to continually catch one’s breath. Whoever could not, until now, marvel at or cry over Chopin will learn it here… Unconditional recommendation!”
In November 2006 David Hood reviewed the same recording for Libretto, 3MBSFM, in Melbourne Australia, “this recording is superb ... the collection stands with those of Moravec and Rubinstein in sheer style and excellence. “
In the same year he recorded for Celestial Harmonies two magnum opus contemporary German piano cycles: Hans Otte’s “Stundenbuch / Book of Hours” and Peter Michael Hamel’s “Vom Klang des Lebens / Of the Sound of Life” which were listed in the February, 2008 issue of nmz-Neue Musikzeitung in Germany among the best records released during 2007. Roger Woodward’s performances of J.S.Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue and 2nd and 6th Partitas released in 2007, also received the coveted “Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik”.
Further CD publications scheduled over the first art of 2008 include the Debussy Preludes, Chopin F-minor Piano Concerto and Beethoven C-major Piano Quartet Wo036, with the Alexander String Quartet and the first (of two) books of J.S.Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier”.
The Guardian (UK) described him as a “pianistic genius”; Le Monde de la Musique, Paris, for his Debussy performances, as “magnificent”; in Edinburgh, he was described as a “musician’s musician” and at the Toulouse Festival, the French Press wrote: “Roger Woodward compte parmi les musiciens internationaux de premier plan à notre epoque”.
Roger Woodward performs with the major orchestras and conductors including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, New York, Los Angeles and Israel Philharmonics, Orchestre de Paris, the Cleveland Orchestra, London Orchestras and EEC Mahlerjungendorchester directed by Claudio Abbado. He worked with Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Eliahu Inbal, James Judd, Lorin Maazel, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Roger Norrington, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Edo de Waart. Paavo Berglund, Eric Leinsdorf, Witold Rowicki, Georges Tzipine, Georg Tintner and Walter Susskind. He premiered new works by Gilbert Amy, Jean Barraqué, Anne Boyd, James Dillon, Franco Donatoni, Morton Feldman, Rolf Gehlhaar, Peter Michael Hamel, Askell Masson, Richard Meale, Olivier Messiaen, Hans Otte, Arvo Pärt, Horatiu Radulescu, Larry Sitsky, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Toru Takemitsu, Xu Xiao-song and Yannis Xenakis amongst others. As a composer, Woodward was commissioned by the Festival d’Automne à Paris for the bicentennial celebrations of the French Revolution and his works were performed in the UK, Poland, France, Spain and at the Sydney Spring International Festival of New Music.
His passion for chamber music involved him in performances with a wide range of artists including the Vienna Trio, Alexander, Arditti, Edinburgh and Tokyo String Quartets, Frank Zappa, Ivry Gitlis, Synergy Percussion (Sydney) and with the Sydney Dance Company in a production of Xenakis’s Kraanerg recorded by Etcetera Records BV (Amsterdam).
He founded and directed the London Music Digest, Kötschach-Mauthner Musiktage, Sydney Spring International Festival of New Music and Joie et Lumière series, Bourgogne. Woodward performed at international festivals on five continents, including Sviatoslav Richter’s Festival at Grange de Meslay, Tours, on several occasions. He made television an d video documentaries for the BBC with Xenakis, Boulez and further documentaries with Stockhausen, Cage and Arvo Pärt.
He is Commander of the Polish Order of Merit (1993) and will receive the Polish Order of Solidarity in 2008; a Chevalier in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and Companion of the Order of Australia, where he was designated a lifelong National Treasure by the Australian National Trust.
Roger Woodward studied piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney, with Prof Alexander Sverjensky and in the class of Prof Zbigniew Drzewiecki at the National Chopin Academy for Music, Warsaw. He works with young artists in many countries and participates on the Juries of international competitions. Together with the musicians of the Alexander String Quartet he is Professor at the San Francisco State University and author of publications covering a wide field. Their recorded performance of the Shostakovich Piano Quintet for Foghorn Classics, USA, has received rave reviews.
© Patrick Togher Artists’ Management 2008