Richard Pearce

Organist, Piano

Richard Pearce was organ scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, where as conductor and organist he toured and recorded extensively with the chapel choir. After graduating with first class honours in music, he studied piano accompaniment for two years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Richard is fortunate to work in a variety of musical fields, but working with chamber choirs and choruses has become a speciality. He records and broadcasts regularly with the BBC Singers, and recently conducted a recording with them of works by Britten, Poston and Roxanna Panufnik. He has also directed them in broadcasts from the Vezelay festival in France and a concert featuring works by James MacMillan and Judith Bingham. Richard enjoys the challenge of preparing an extremely wide variety of repertoire including much contemporary and new music. He has a long-standing association with the Royal Choral Society, and performs with them several times a year at the Royal Albert Hall. In addition he makes twice-yearly trips to Sweden to work with groups in the Stockholm and Malmö areas.

Richard is regular organist with the Philharmonia and BBC Symphony Orchestras; recent performances have included the solo organ part in the European première of Unsuk Chin’s Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles with Esa-Pekka Salonen in the Royal Festival Hall, and a tour of China performing Saint-Säens Organ Symphony with Vladimir Ashkenazy, both with the Philharmonia Orchestra. He also performs regularly in Promenade concerts and recordings, including at the Last Night of the Proms to a worldwide television audience, and is playing the Saint-Säens again later this month in the Royal Albert Hall.

He frequently conducts and plays for services at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster and at the Houses of Parliament.

Richard is a vocal coach and staff accompanist at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.