Ralph Van Raat

Ralph Van Raat Biography

After gaining the International Baccalaureate Diploma, pianist and musicologist Ralph van Raat (1978) studied the piano with Prof. Ton Hartsuiker and Prof. Willem Brons at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and Musicology at the University of Amsterdam. During his piano studies, which he concluded “Cum Laude" (With Distinction) in 2002, Van Raat was admitted to “The Provision for Outstanding Musicians”, a special training course offered alongside the regular curriculum. He also concluded his musicology studies with the mention "Cum Laude" (With Distinction) (2003). As a part of the Advanced Programme of the Conservatory of Amsterdam, Van Raat studied also with Claude Helffer in Paris, with Ursula Oppens at Chicago’s Northwestern University, with Liisa Pohjola in Finland and with Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. Van Raat also has taken part in several masterclasses at home and abroad, made possible through a.o. a Prince Bernhard Cultural Trust Fellowship. Among the prizes Van Raat has won are the Second Prize and Donemus-Prize (for Contemporary Music) of the Princess Christina Competition (1995); the Stipend-Prize Darmstadt during the “Internationale Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik” in Darmstadt (Germany, 1998); First Prize of the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition (1999); the Philip Morris Arts Award (2003); the Elisabeth Everts Prize (2005); the international Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship (2005); VSCD Classical Music Prize (2005) and the Fortis MeesPierson Award of the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam (2006). Van Raat appears as a recitalist in The Netherlands and abroad, in Europe, the Middle-East and Asia as well as the United States. Many of his concerts have been broadcasted by Dutch as well as foreign radio and television networks. In 2006, Ralph was given his own radio-series of 6 programs for the Dutch national radio (NPS Radio 4), in which he dealt with contemporary music and accessibility. Van Raat performs as a soloist with ensembles and orchestras including the Nieuw Ensemble (Jurjen Hempel, cond.), the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music Ensemble (Ludovic Morlot, cond.), the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Frankfurt (Lucas Vis, cond.) the Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra (Etienne Siebens, cond.), London Sinfonietta (David Porcelijn, cond.), the Dutch National Youth Orchestra (Reinbert de Leeuw, cond.), the Brabants Orkest (o.l.v. Reinbert de Leeuw), the Nizhny Novgorod Philharmonic Orchestra (Aleksander Skulsky, cond.), the Radio Chamber Orchestra (Peter Eötvös, cond. and Marc Soustrot, cond.), the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (Roman Kofman, cond.) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the BBC Proms series. He played at important festivals such as the Holland Festival, the Time of Music festival in Viitasaari, Finland and the Tanglewood Summer Festival in the United States. Several CD’s have been and will be released on Attacca, Erasmus, Naxos, NM-Classics, 20th-Century Classics and Q-Disc. Since December 2006, Ralph has an exclusive contract with the international record label Naxos. Van Raat regularly collaborates with composers and many of them have dedicated their piano compositions to him. Both at the Utrecht Conservatory and the Conservatory of Amsterdam, Van Raat teaches contemporary piano music. As from 2003, Van Raat is a Steinway Artist. Official Site: http://www.ralphvanraat.com