Charles Richard-Hamelin
Elizabeth Delage
Silver medalist and laureate of the Krystian Zimerman Prize at the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin is standing out today as one of the most important musicians of his generation.
In 2014, he also won the second prize at the Montreal International Musical Competition and the third prize at the Seoul International Music Competition in South Korea. Charles is the recipient of the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec and the prestigious Career Development Award offered by the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto.
He has appeared in various prestigious festivals including La Roque d’Anthéron in France, the Prague Spring Festival, the “Chopin and his Europe” Festival in Warsaw and the Lanaudière Festival in Canada. As a soloist, he has performed with more than fifty ensembles including the main symphony orchestras of Canada (Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Métropolitain, Québec, Edmonton, Calgary…) as well as with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Sinfonia Varsovia, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Korean Symphony Orchestra, OFUNAM (Mexico), les Violons du Roy and I Musici de Montréal.
He has played under the baton of renowned conductors such as Kent Nagano, Rafael Payare, Antoni Wit, Vasily Petrenko, Jacek Kaspszyk, Aziz Shokhakimov, Peter Oundjian, Jacques Lacombe, Fabien Gabel, Bernard Labadie, Carlo Rizzi, John Storgårds, Alexander Prior, Giancarlo Guerrer, Jonathan Cohen, Christoph Campestrini, Lan Shui and Jean-Marie Zeitouni. Charles Richard-Hamelin is a graduate from McGill University, the Yale School of Music, the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal and has studied with Paul Surdulescu, Sara Laimon, Boris Berman, André Laplante et Jean Saulnier.
Charles Richard-Hamelin has recorded over ten albums to this day, all published on the Analekta label. Five of these are dedicated primarily to the solo piano works of Frédéric Chopin. He has also recorded concertante works – both Chopin piano concertos with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal conducted by Kent Nagano and Mozart’s piano concertos nos. 22 and 24 with the Violons du Roy conducted by Jonathan Cohen. His recordings have earned several Félix (ADISQ) and one JUNO (2022) awards and received widespread acclaim from critics around the world.
