Richard Egarr brings a joyful sense of adventure and a keen, enquiring mind to all his music-making - whether conducting, directing from the keyboard, giving recitals, playing chamber-music, and indeed talking about music at every opportunity.
Since 2019 he has been Principal Guest of the Residentie Orkest and Artistic Partner of the St Paul Chamber. He was Music Director (now Emeritus) of the Philharmonia Baroque 2020-2024, Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music 2005-2020, and Associate Artist with the Scottish Chamber 2011-2017. He straddles the worlds of historically-informed and modern symphonic performance and has conducted many leading symphony orchestras, notably the London Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw and Philadelphia orchestras. He made his Glyndebourne debut in 2007 and conducted opera cycles of Monteverdi, Purcell and Mozart with AAM at the Barbican; Handel oratorios lie at the heart of his repertoire.
In 2024/25 he conducts the London Philharmonic at the Southbank Centre in a programme ranging from the baroque to the contemporary. He returns to the Cincinnati Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Essen Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, Nederlands Bach Society, Philharmonie Zuidnederlands, and leads a project with the Spanish National Youth Orchestra JONDE. Highlights with the Residentie Orkest and St Paul Chamber this season include Beethoven’s Egmont (complete), a programme of Chopin and Saint-Saens, and Bach’s St Matthew Passion and the Brandenburg concerti.
As half of Duo Pleyel, Egarr regularly plays four-hands repertoire with his wife Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya; they have released 3 acclaimed albums on Linn – Mozart/JC Bach, Dussek and Schubert - with a project to record all Beethoven Symphonies in arrangements by Czerny for the composer’s anniversary year in 2027. Their next release will be Yuletide favourites in late 2024, when they will also give a concert tour to Holland and the UK. Egarr is noted for his many solo harpsichord recitals over the years, notably at the Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall.
Egarr’s extensive discography includes solo keyboard works by Byrd and Sweelinck on Linn, and by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Couperin on Harmonia Mundi. His long list of recordings with the Academy of Ancient Music includes several award-winning Handel discs (2007 Gramophone Award, 2009 MIDEM and Edison awards) and both JS Bach’s Passions. His world premiere recording on AAM Records of Dussek’s Messe Solemnelle won the Gramophone Best Choral Recording 2021.
Egarr trained as a choirboy at York Minster, at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, and as organ scholar at Clare College Cambridge. His studies with Gustav and Marie Leonhardt further inspired his work in the field of historical performance. He taught for many years at the Amsterdam Conservatoire and was Visiting Professor at the Juilliard School for over 10 years.