Mr. Richard Becker


Coordinator of piano studies at the University of Richmond, Richard Becker is a pianist, composer, and chamber musician whose playing has been acclaimed in Europe and America. Playing on college campuses, he has frequently toured the eastern United States. He has performed at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Town Hall, 92nd Street Y, Carnegie Hall, Washington DC’s Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, and at the French Embassy. In Paris, he performed at Salle Cortot as first prize laureate of the French Piano Institute (1996), l’École Normale de Musique and at Salle Edmund Michelet (1997, 2006), a venue of the Cité Internationale des Arts, where he has been a frequent artist-in-residence. As a composer, he has been a MacDowell Conlony Fellow and was a nominee for an American Academy of Arts and Letters award.
 
His performances and his own music have been broadcast on NPR, Voice of America, WNYC, WETA, WGMS, and WCVE, and have been featured during a Marshall University Artist Residency, at National Conferences of the Music Teachers National Association, at CMS-Mid-Atlantic, at Brattleboro Chamber Festival, at the American Music Festival of the National Gallery, the James Madison University Contemporary Music and the Roxbury (NY) 
Music Festivals. He has received Meet the Composer Grants, Contemporary Music Studio grants, and critical acclaim in the press. Becker’s playing has been described as “powerful” by the Washington Post, “admirable in taste and technique” by the New York Times, and “brilliant with seamless passagework and elegant phrasing” by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
 
Becker’s playing is grounded in the tradition of Arthur Schnabel, acquired during his study with Leonard Shure while at Boston University (M. Mus.). His teaching owes much to the methods of Tobias Matthay, learned from Cecile Staub Genhart during his years at the Eastman School of Music (B.Mus. and Performers Certificate). Becker taught at the University of Texas and Boston University prior to joining the faculty at University of Richmond.
 
In recent years, his poetry has been published in journals such as America, Columbia, Visions-International, Cold Mountain and his poetic sequence, FATES, as a chapbook of The Literary Review, Summer, 2008 in print and online. His compositions have been recorded on CRS and his piano performances on Albany Records.

Compositions

Waltzes, 2006
Listen
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Tiento and Dance, 1995
Listen: Tiento
Listen: Dance
View Sheet Music: Tiento
View Sheet Music: Dance

Invention and Dance, 1999
Listen: Invention
Listen: Dance
View Sheet Music: Invention
View Sheet Music: Dance

Sonata, 1974
Listen: Andante
Listen: Finale
View Sheet Music: Andante
View Sheet Music: Scherzo
View Sheet Music: Allegro

Seven Fantasies, 1990
Listen: Prologue
Listen: Variations
Listen: Agitato
Listen: Elegy and Allegro
Listen: Nocturne
Listen: Allegro
Listen: Elegy
View Sheet Music: Prologue
View Sheet Music: Variations
View Sheet Music: Agitato
View Sheet Music: Elegy and Allegro
View Sheet Music: Nocturne
View Sheet Music: Allegro
View Sheet Music: Elegy

Saltimbanques, 1989
Listen: Prologue
Listen: Burlesque
Listen: Acrobats Dance
Listen: Passacaglia
Listen: Bagatelle
Listen: Slow Dance
Listen: Epilogue
View Sheet Music: Prologue
View Sheet Music: Burlesque
View Sheet Music: Acrobats Dance
View Sheet Music: Passacaglia
View Sheet Music: Bagatelle
View Sheet Music: Slow Dance
View Sheet Music: Epilogue

Getty Square, 2003
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Four Songs, 1999
Listen: Black Mountain
Listen: Mandrake
Listen: Driftwood
Listen: Equinox
View Sheet Music: Black Mountain
View Sheet Music: Mandrake
View Sheet Music: Driftwood
View Sheet Music: Equinox

Four Poems of Emily Dickinson
View Sheet Music: I heard a Fly buzz - when I died
View Sheet Music: I would not paint — a picture —
View Sheet Music: Much Madness is divinest Sense
View Sheet Music: Volcanoes be in Sicily

Five Mementos, 1980
View Sheet Music: Prelude
View Sheet Music: Reflections
View Sheet Music: Farewell
View Sheet Music: Bagatelle
View Sheet Music: Postlude

Fantasy on B-A-C-H, 1985
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Elegy, 2000
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Crossing Pont Marie, 1998
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Bavarian Sketches, 2015
View Sheet Music: Allegro moderato
View Sheet Music: Allegretto
View Sheet Music: Movement

Bartok-Ligeti Piano Variations, 2016
Listen
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Performances

Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit
Listen: Ondine
Listen: Le gibet
Listen: Scarbo

Debussy: Preludes Deuxieme Livre
Listen: Brouillards
Listen: Ondine