Charles Richard-Hamelin and Andrew Wan in Duo  ^2024-2025

Paul McCreesh is renowned for the energy and passion of his music-making and interpretative insight combining “musicological inquisitiveness and artistic creativity”(Gramophone). He gives performances “benefitting from years of living with and thinking about a work, constantly evolving his approach to it” (Opera). First established as the founder and Artistic Director of the Gabrieli Consort & Players, he now guest conducts some of the world’s finest orchestras, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Bergen Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, New Japan Philharmonic and Verbier Festival Orchestra. He is a former Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, and served for six seasons as Artistic Director of the International Festival Wratislava Cantans in Wrocław, Poland. McCreesh is passionate in his determination to broaden and democratize access to the arts, especially amongst young people, and is actively involved in developing new educational initiatives wherever he works. 

 

Andrew Wan was named Concertmaster of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal in 2008. As a soloist, he has performed throughout the world under the direction of such conductors as Vengerov, Petrenko, Labadie, Rizzi, Oundjian, Stern, and DePreist, among others, and has given chamber music concerts with many artists, including the Juilliard String Quartet, Repin, Hamelin, Trifonov, Pressler, Widmann, Ax, Ehnes, and Shaham. He has served as guest concertmaster of the Pittsburgh, Houston, Toronto, National Arts Centre and Indianapolis Symphonies. His recordings with Kent Nagano and the OSM, Charles Richard-Hamelin, James Ehnes and the Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Metropolis Ensemble, and the New Orford String Quartet have received a GRAMMY nomination, two Juno Awards, and multiple Felix and Opus Awards. Mr. Wan holds three degrees from the Juilliard School and is currently Assistant Professor of Violin at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University, and Artistic Director of Les Solistes de l’OSM. He plays a Michel’Angelo Bergonzi violin (1744), on generous loan from the David Sela collection, for which he extends his warmest thanks. He also performs on an 1860 Dominique Peccatte bow, graciously loaned by Canimex.

Charles Richard-Hamelin stands out on the international music scene as a “highly sensitive” pianist (Gramophone), driven by “a great depth of feeling without the slightest condescension” (Le Devoir). He is recognized as “fluent, multifaceted and tonally seductive… a technician of exceptional elegance and sophistication” (BBC Music Magazine).

In 2015, he received the Silver Medal at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw and the Krystian Zimerman Prize for best performance of a sonata. He also won Second Prize at the Concours musical international de Montréal and Third Prize and the Special Prize for best performance of a Beethoven sonata at the Seoul International Music Competition, in South Korea.

Charles Richard-Hamelin is in great demand as a guest performer at the world’s greatest classical music festivals, including the International Piano Festival of La Roque d’Anthéron in France, the Prague Spring International Music Festival, the International “Chopin and his Europe” Festival in Warsaw, the Festival International de Lanaudière and the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. He has worked with renowned conductors, including Kent Nagano, Vasily Petrenko, Jacek Kaspszyk, Aziz Shokhakimov, Peter Oundjian, Jacques Lacombe, Fabien Gabel, Carlo Rizzi, Alexander Prior, Christoph Campestrini, Lan Shui, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, Charles Olivieri-Munroe, Howard Shelley, Antoni Wit and Jonathan Cohen. He has also performed as a soloist with famous orchestras around the world, including the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Québec, Toronto, Edmonton, Warsaw, Singapore and Hiroshima symphony orchestras, as well as the Orchestre Métropolitain, Les Violons du Roy, I Musici de Montréal, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, OFUNAM (Mexico City), the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra, the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra and Sinfonia Varsovia.

Charles Richard-Hamelin has recorded five albums to this day, all published on the Analekta label. In 2015, he first recorded acclaimed performances of Chopin’s last works. Launched in 2016, his second album brings together works by Beethoven, Enescu and Chopin, recorded in concert at the Palais Montcalm in Québec City. His discography then was enriched by two more CDs, one devoted to the first part of a complete collection of Beethoven violin and piano sonatas, recorded with the solo violinist of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Andrew Wan. His latest offering, devoted to Chopin’s two piano concertos, was recorded live in concert at Montréal’s Maison symphonique with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under the direction of Kent Nagano. His most recent collaboration with Les Violons du Roy leads to the publication of his latest album: Mozart’s Piano Concertos N^os 22 and 24, under the direction of Jonathan Cohen. These albums received awards and enthusiastic reviews from the leading music critics.