Historical
Piano Concerts Series
About
the Musicians
Richard Dowling
Hailed by The New York Times as “an especially impressive fine pianist,” Richard Dowling
appears regularly across America in solo recitals, at chamber music
festivals, ragtime/jazz music festivals, and as guest soloist in
concerto engagements with symphony orchestras. Career highlights
include performances in New York at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall,
Steinway Hall, The Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center, The Metropolitan
Club, and the 92nd Street Y. He has been a regular featured artist at
the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Missouri, the West Coast Ragtime
Festival in California, and the Juneau Jazz & Classics Festival in
Alaska. The National Federation of Music Clubs honored him with a
special award recognizing his outstanding performances of American
music. Works of Chopin, Debussy, Gershwin, Gottschalk, Ravel, ragtime,
and early jazz figure prominently in his repertoire.
On April 1,
2017 Mr. Dowling performed the complete piano works of Scott Joplin in
two historic sold-out recitals at Carnegie Hall, exactly 100 years to
the day that Joplin died in New York. He is the first pianist in the
world to perform the complete cycle of Joplin’s 53 rags, marches,
waltzes, and cakewalks in public. Throughout 2017 and 2018 Mr. Dowling
performs nearly 100 all-Joplin recitals nationwide in commemoration of
the centennial of Joplin’s death and the sesquicentennial of his birth.
His 3-CD set, The Complete Piano Works of Scott Joplin, was nominated
for a Grammy Award earlier this year. Celebrity ragtime pianist Max
Morath says “Richard Dowling’s mastery of the Joplin rags invokes a
tenderness that charms us and a technical command that inspires our
admiration.”
Richard Dowling has received reviews that praise
him as “a master of creating beautiful sounds with impeccable control
of colors and textures,” as “a musician with something to say, the
skill to say it and the magnetic power to make you want to listen,” and
for giving “a superb recital that left the audience craving for more at
the end.” He is also a versatile recording artist with over a dozen CDs
of classical, chamber, ragtime, jazz, and popular music.
Mr.
Dowling holds advanced degrees from Yale and the University of Texas,
including a doctorate in music. As a sheet music editor for
Ludwig/Masters and Alfred music publishers he has produced numerous
critical performing editions of piano music by Zez Confrey, Debussy,
Fauré, Gershwin, Hummel, Mendelssohn and Ravel. As a Piatigorsky
Foundation Artist since 1994 he has performed nearly 1,300 recitals
across the United States. Mr. Dowling resides in New York City and is
represented exclusively by Parker Artists, a prominent classical music
management in New York. Mr. Dowling is an official Steinway Artist and
the proud owner of a 2008 Hamburg Steinway Model C grand piano. Visit
his website at www.richard-dowling.com.
