Biography
The music of Richard Beaudoin (b. 1975) has been performed by some of the finest musicians in Europe and America, including the soprano Annette Dasch, the Kreutzer, Lydian and Chiara String Quartets, pianists Marilyn Nonken, Mark Knoop, Constantine Finehouse and Wolfram Rieger, organist Clive Driskill-Smith and tenor Joseph Kaiser. Mr. Beaudoin’s works have been premièred at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Wiener Konzerthaus, New York’s Weill Recital Hall/Carnegie Hall and London’s Royal Festival Hall. He has received commissions from the Konzerthaus-Dortmund, the Staatstheater-Kassel and the Boston Lyric Opera. His writings on music have been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism and Perspectives of New Music, and his latest works pioneer a compositional technique involving micro-measured interpretations.
While living in Europe, Mr. Beaudoin’s music was performed in London’s Royal Festival Hall by members of the Philharmonia Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins, the BBC Singers, violinist Clio Gould and pianist Philip Howard. In May 2005 he was invited to Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford University to attend a concert that included four of his new works. Since returning to the United States, his music has been performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York by tenor Joseph Kaiser, at Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Art by the Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, by pianist Marilyn Nonken and by the Chiara and Lydian String Quartets. More recently, his work has recently been heard in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, England, Italy, Portugal, Holland, Israel, Canada and around the United States. In early 2010, Constantine Finehouse released a CD entitled Backwards Glance, which pairs of two of his early piano works alongside two by Johannes Brahms.
Recent years have brought increased performances and recognition for Mr. Beaudoin’s work: In August 2007, the first act of his opera-in-progress based on Herman Melville’s Pierre was staged at London’s Arcola Theatre, starring Joseph Kaiser and Annette Dasch. In April 2008, the Staatstheater-Kassel produced Mr. Beaudoin’s chamber opera, Himmelfahrt, based on a text by Heinrich Heine and conducted by Christopher Ward. In December 2008, his organ work, Summer Canons, was premiered at St. John’s Smith Square, London by Clive Driskill-Smith. In March 2009, Mr. Beaudoin was commissioned by the Konzerthaus-Dortmund to compose a 30-minute song cycle for Annette Dasch on texts by the eminent East German author Christa Wolf. This work, entitled Nach-Fragen, was performed to great acclaim at the Konzerthaus-Dortmund, the Wiener Konzerthaus and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. In 2010, the Boston Lyric Opera commissioned Mr Beaudoin to compose a chamber opera, which will be performed five times at Boston's Calderwood Pavilion beginning 1 February 2011.
Since summer 2009, he has been composing a series of works—entitled Études d’un prélude—that inaugurate a new compositional process called 'Photorealism'. This discovery, made in collaboration with the Swiss researcher Dr. Olivier Senn, involves microtiming data from LARA, developed at the Institut Forschung & Entwicklung at the Hochschule, Lucerne, Switzerland.
Mr. Beaudoin has been invited to lecture on his works at Cambridge University, The Royal Academy of Music, London, The Steinhardt School at New York University and The New England Conservatory. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, most notably the Theodore Holland Award from London's Royal Academy and the Ira Gershwin Prize for Music and Theater Arts from Brandeis University. His primary teachers include Michael Finnissy, David Rakowski, Martin Boykan, Eric Chafe and Lewis Spratlan. He has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and has worked at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. His writings on music have been published by Perspectives of New Music, Organised Sound and The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.
Mr. Beaudoin currently holds the post of Lecturer on Music at Harvard University.
back to topNotable Performances
Annette Dasch and Ulrich Naudé—on 25 January 2011 at the Laeiszhalle, Hamburg, Germany; on 2 February 2011 in Ljubljana; on 8 February 2011 at the Brucknerhaus in Linz, Switzerland; on 30 April 2011 at the Festspiele in Schwetzingen, Germany.
Nach-Fragen
Annika Sophie Ritlewski—Palais Prinz Carl, Heidelberg, Germany, 18 May 2010
dreifacher Frühling
Mark Knoop—Kings Place, London, England, 17 May 2010
Étude d’un prélude I—Chopin desséché
Étude d’un prélude IV—Black Wires
Étude d’un prélude VII—Latticed Window
New England Conservatory—Lecture on piano works in the Étude d’un prélude series, 16 April 2010
Cambridge University, England—Mr. Beaudoin delivers two lectures (at the Faculty of Music and at the Centre for Music and Science), 23 March 2010
Kreutzer Quartet—York University, York, England, 16 March 2010
Étude d’un prélude X—Second String Quartet
Kreutzer Quartet—Wiltons Music Hall, London, England, 15 March 2010
Étude d’un prélude II—Flutter Echoes
Étude d’un prélude VI—The Real Thing
Étude d’un prélude VIII—Kertész Distortion
The Royal Academy of Music—Research Event devoted to the Étude d’un prélude series (to include lectures by Mr Beaudoin and Olivier Senn, and open rehearsals with the Kreutzer Quartet and Mark Knoop), London, 19 March 2010
Joseph Kaiser and Erika Switzer—Recording Session, New York, 2010
Étude d’un prélude III—Wehmut
Romanzero Lieder
The Steinhardt School, New York University—Lecture and workshop on piano works in the Étude d’un prélude series, hosted by Marilyn Nonken, New York, 4 February 2010
Marilyn Nonken—CNMAT, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Sacramento, San Francisco State, University of Utah, Four performances: 8, 9, 10, 12 November 2009
Étude d’un prélude I—Chopin desséché
Étude d’un prélude IV—Black Wires
Annette Dasch and Wolfram Rieger—Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Wiener Konzerthaus & Konzerthaus-Dortmund, 18-24 March 2009
Nach-Fragen
Clive Driskill-Smith—St. John’s Smith Square, London, England, 11 December 2008
Summer Canons
The Dinosaur Annex Ensemble—Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, The Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music, 19 September 2008
Eunoia Songs
The Chiara String Quartet—Red River Music Festival & Greenwood Festival, June & August 2008
First String Quartet: Memor fui nocte nominis tui
The Staatstheater-Kassel, Christopher Ward, conductor—directed by Sebastian Müller, Kassel, Germany, 6 performances in April 2008
Himmelfahrt
Annette Dasch, Joseph Kaiser, Abigail Fischer, Christopher Ward, Constantine Finehouse, et al.—The Arcola Theatre, London, England, August 2007
Pierre, Act I
The Lydian String Quartet—Slosberg Hall, Brandeis University, March 2007
First String Quartet—Memor fui nocte nominis tui
Marilyn Nonken—Buckley Recital Hall, Amherst College, 23 February 2007
Étude: the world itself might be vague
Constantine Finehouse—The International Holland Music Sessions, Holland, 19 August 2005
Qui Tollis
New York New Music Ensemble—Slosberg Hall, Brandeis University, March 2005
Love Affairs and Tales of Atrocity
Joseph Kaiser—Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, March 2002
Light Verse
Members of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins, conductor—The Royal Festival Hall, The Music of Today Series, London, England, June 2001
I Hear America Singing
Clio Gould and the Royal Academy Soloists—The Duke’s Hall, London, England, March 2001
ARCANGELO
The BBC Singers—St. Marylebone Parish Church, London, England, November 2000
A Stand of People
Joseph Kaiser—St. Catherine’s Church, Montréal, Canada, May 2000
J’écris dans ce pays où l’on parque les hommes
