Ralph van Raat piano

Fellowship Winner 2005

Pianist and musicologist Ralph van Raat was born in 1978 and studied the piano with Prof. Ton Hartsuiker and Prof. Willem Brons at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and Musicology at the University of Amsterdam. He concluded both studies with distinction in 2002 and 2003. As part of the Advanced Programme of the Conservatory of Amsterdam and with support of a Prince Bernhard Fellowship, Ralph van Raat also studied with Claude Helffer in Paris, Ursula Oppens at Chicago's Northwestern University and Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. Ralph van Raat has won a number of prizes, including the Stipend-Prize Darmstadt during the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt (1998); the Philip Morris Arts Award (2003); the Elisabeth Everts Prize (2004); the VSCD Classical Music Prize (2005), and the Fortis MeesPierson Award of the Concertgebouw (2006). Ralph van Raat appears as a recitalist and soloist with orchestras throughout the world and in 2007 he made his Proms debut playing the piano concertante part in Ives' 4th Symphony with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Ralph Van Raat's many recordings include the complete piano works of Louis Andriessen for Attacca in 2005, and the complete piano works of John Adams for Naxos in 2007. Later this year Ralph will be releasing the complete piano works of John Taverner on Naxos, as well as CDs featuring Frederic Rzewski and Jonathon Harvey. With the help of the BBT and the Dutch Radio Broadcast company NPS, Ralph is commissioning a new piano concerto from composer Gavin Bryars.

Photograph taken by Marco Borggreve