Charles Richard-Hamelin

Winner of the silver medal and the Krystian Zimerman Prize at the Frederic Chopin  International Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2015, Canadian pianist Charles Richard Hamelin stands out today as one of the most important artists of his generation. In  2014, he also made a name for himself internationally by receiving second prize at the  Concours musical international de Montréal and third prize at the Seoul International  Music Competition. Charles Richard-Hamelin was the recipient of the Ordre des arts et  des lettres du Québec and the prestigious Career Development Award offered by the  Women’s Musical Club of Toronto. 

He has been invited to several major festivals such as La Roque d’Anthéron in France,  the Prague Spring Festival, the “Chopin and his Europe” Festival in Warsaw and the  Lanaudière Festival. As a soloist, he has been heard with over fifty ensembles including  the major Canadian symphony orchestras (Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Metropolitan,  Quebec, Edmonton, Calgary…) as well as with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra,  Sinfonia Varsovia, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony  Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, OFUNAM (Mexico), Les Violons du Roy and I  Musici de Montréal. He has collaborated with renowned conductors such as Kent  Nagano, Antoni Wit, Vasily Petrenko, Jacek Kaspszyk, Aziz Shokhakimov, Peter Oundjian,  Jacques Lacombe, Fabien Gabel, Carlo Rizzi, Alexander Prior, Giancarlo Guerrero,  Christoph Campestrini, Lan Shui and Jean -Marie Zeitouni. A graduate of McGill  University, the Yale School of Music and the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, he  studied with Paul Surdulescu, Sara Laimon, Boris Berman, André Laplante and Jean  Saulnier. 

Charles Richard-Hamelin has recorded almost ten albums, all released on the Analekta  label. In 2015, he first recorded remarkable interpretations of Chopin’s late works.  Launched in 2016, his second album brought together works by Beethoven, Enescu and  Chopin, recorded in concert at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec. His discography was  then enriched with three albums, one devoted to the first part of the complete sonata  for violin and piano by Beethoven, recorded with the concertmaster of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Andrew Wan, the second taken from the concert recording  of the two concertos for piano and orchestra by Chopin, with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under the direction of Kent Nagano and the third, the complete Ballads and Impromptus by Chopin. His recent collaboration with Les Violons  du Roy led to the release of a Mozart album (piano concertos no. 22 and 24) under the  direction of Jonathan Cohen. 

These recordings have received numerous awards and enthusiastic reviews from leading  music critics.

More recently, he has recorded his second volume of the complete sonatas for violin  and piano by Beethoven (with Andrew Wan), as well as a new Chopin recital, presenting  the 24 Preludes, the Andante spianato and the Great Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22.