Barry Douglas
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Barry Douglas (born April 23, 1960) is a British classical pianist.
Born in Belfast, he won the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in 1986, the first non-Russian pianist to do so since Van Cliburn. Barry Douglas received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2002 New Year's Honours List for services to music. He also received a Fellowship of the Royal College of Music where he is Prince Consort Professor of Piano and an Hon. Doctorate of Music from Queens University Belfast.
His debut album was a recording of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, in the original piano version. He has made many recordings since then and is currently (2006) recording the five Beethoven piano concertos. He is Artistic Director of the International Piano Festival in Manchester, England and the Clandeboye Festival in Clandeboye. He founded Camerata Ireland in 1998 which has Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Mary McAleese the President of Ireland as Joint Patrons.
He had previously won the Bronze Medal at the Van Cliburn Competition in Texas in 1985 and the top prize in the Santander Paloma O'Shea competition in Spain.
Barry Douglas increasingly devotes part of his time to conducting the Camerata Ireland orchestra. He has directed cycles of the complete Beethoven Symphonies (in November 2002) and Mozart and Schubert Symphonies and Mozart Concertos in 2000 and 2001.
Barry Douglas first studied in Belfast and at 16 had lessons with Felicitas LeWinter, a pupil of Emil von Sauer - a pupil of Liszt. In London he studyied with John Barstow for four years and then studied privately with Maria Curcio, herself a pupil of Austrian pianist Arthur Schnabel, going on to study with the Russian pianist Yvegeny Malinin in Paris.
He attended Methodist College Belfast.
