(Photo credit: Fleur Kilpatrick)
News
Roy's Scottish tour early this year let Edinburgh and Aberdeen audiences hear the delights of Chabrier's complete Pièces pittoresques, before a tight-packed audience in a small lecture room at Glasgow's RSAMD engaged Roy in discussion about The Art of French Piano Music (of which more below).
British, French and Australian radio audiences have heard Roy over the last few months in concert or live broadcasts, including a Sunday guest spot with Iain Burnside on BBC Radio 3, and two programmes on Radio France Musique (a Christmas morning broadcast with Jean-Pierre Derrien for Le matin du musicien, followed some weeks later by Note contre note with Martine Kaufmann, discussing and illustrating Roy's new book).
15 May 2009 saw the launch at the Royal Academy of Music of the new book in question, The Art of French Piano Music (30 copies sold immediately), followed in the next few days by a concert at the Debussy Museum near Paris and DVD recordings in Vienna. Click here to hear Roy's radio interview about his new book, illustrated at the piano, on Andrew Ford's ABC National programme The Music Show.
July saw the release of Roy's new 2-CD Belle Epoque album of piano music by Gabriel Fauré (for the site with the best current UK/European price click here; for other continents click here), along with an all-Fauré chamber music concert with the Kreutzer Quartet at Wiltons Hall in London and classes at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris for the European-American Musical Alliance.
September 2009 took Roy back to to Australasia for solo and chamber music concerts, masterclasses and lectures including two Elder Hall concerts in Adelaide, the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne, the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore. His previous antipodean tour, in November 2008, featured Poulenc's Concert champêtre with the Queensland Orchestra in Brisbane, and again in Sydney. Earlier in 2008 he performed Dvořák's Piano Quintet with Prague's legendary Panocha Quartet in Lanškroun (the Czech home town of Roy's mother); this will form part of their London programme at Eaton Square on 8 April 2010.
As Keyboard Research Fellow at London's Royal Academy of Music, Roy animates various of the Academy's Research Events. These have included song workshops on Fauré, Chabrier and Debussy, and lecture-recitals or concerts by Roy to mark the appearance of his new critical editions of Debussy's Preludes and Fauré's Thème et variations.
Since 2005 Roy has featured on various episodes of Radio France Musique's weekly programme L'atelier du musicien. In October 2006 he was guest concert artist and lecturer at the Claude Debussy International Congress hosted by the University of Texas at Austin; in November 2007 he was Keynote speaker and piano recitalist at the International French Music conference at Laie, Hawaii.
Click on Recordings on the side bar for a list of Roy's various CDs. His Debussy complete solo piano series on Tall Poppies includes two world premières. Volumes 3 & 4 of this set were each featured daily as CD of the Week on Australia's ABC Classic FM, and volume 4 as "Disque de la semaine" on Radio France Musique.
Teaching
Roy Howat also offers advanced private piano tuition (e-mail for enquiries).
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