Bio.

Richard Casey was born in Manchester in 1966 and started playing the piano at the age of seven with Michael Callaghan and John Gough. After graduating in Music and Modern Languages at St John’s College, Cambridge, he studied piano at the Royal Northern College of Music with Marjorie Clementi and Martin Roscoe, and later with Ronan O’Hora.

 

In 1997 Richard won first prize in the British Contemporary Piano Competition, an achievement which attracted a series of solo engagements in the UK and abroad. He has given piano recitals at many of the major music festivals including Cheltenham, Sounds New Canterbury, Sounds New Belfast, Aldeburgh, Brighton, Edinburgh and Huddersfield as well as appearing in various prestigious venues such as BMIC, London South Bank, Bridgewater Hall Manchester, Conservatoire Frédéric Chopin in Paris, and San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre. From 2007-2012 Richard was Pianist in Residence at Salford University.

 

 Richard is one of the UK’s leading exponents of contemporary music, although his repertoire extends from John Bull to Harrison Birtwistle and beyond. He has given world premières of piano works by Martyn Harry, Marc Yates, Nina Whiteman, Paul Newland, Camden Reeves, Jonathan Brigg, Alan Williams, Anthony Gilbert, Ed Hughes and numerous others. Specialisms include Constant Lambert, Manuel de Falla, Carl Nielsen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Peter Maxwell Davies and Anthony Burgess.

 

Based in Manchester, Richard complements his solo career with a strong commitment to chamber music. He frequently gives 2-piano concerts with his duo partner, Ian Buckle, specialising in repertoire from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

 

Since 1994 he has been pianist with the New Music Players and has performed frequently as a guest with the London Sinfonietta, Lontano and Liverpool-based Ensemble 10:10. In 2003 he was asked to join the Ensemble Intercontemporain in a performance of Pierre Boulez’s Sur Incises at the Carnegie Hall New York.

 

Richard was also a founder-member of the Manchester- based contemporary music ensemble Psappha. From 1991 to 2014 he has performed over 400 works with the group throughout the UK and in tours of Spain, Portugal, Holland, Ireland, France, Belgium, Argentina, Hong Kong, Australia and the USA.

 

Richard is in great demand as an orchestral pianist and regularly plays with the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata, Manchester Concert Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera North, Sinfonia Viva!, Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

 

Richard has recorded the piano works of Camden Reeves, Anthony Gilbert, Anthony Powers, Anthony Burgess, Evelyn Ficarra and Paul Newland as well as Edward Cowie’s epic Rutherford’s Lights and Edward Dudley Hughes’ set of Orchids for piano. His recording of Peter Maxwell Davies’complete piano music 1949 – 2009 was awarded the Times Literary Supplement’s CD of the year in 2012. A recording of Peter Maxwell Davies’ early and late piano works is awaiting release in 2026. Future projects involve recording music by Philip Grange and the piano works of the Frankfurt Gang (Roger Quilter, Percy Grainger, Cyril Scott, H. Balfour Gardiner and Norman O’Neill) on the Prima Facie label.

 

Richard also regularly gives piano masterclasses and workshops for student composers. He has been teaching at the University of Manchester