Visiting Professor

Visiting Professor

Barry Douglas continues to enjoy a major international solo career which has developed since winning the Gold Medal at the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow. In 1999 he founded Camerata Ireland, an all Irish chamber orchestra with players from both Northern and Southern Ireland to celebrate "the wealth of Irish musical talent" and he continues as Artistic Director of the Clandeboye Festival, Ireland, founded in 2004 and the International Piano Festival, Manchester.

Barry Douglas will perform this season with the Dresden Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Houston Symphony Orchestra, National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra to name a few.

In 2006/07, highlights included concerts with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/Leonard Slatkin, Seattle Symphony/Gerry Schwarz, Netherlands Radio Orchestra/Lawrence Foster, Ulster Orchestra/Janos Furst, Bournemouth Symphony/Marin Alsop, BBC Symphony Orchestra/David Robertson, Tenerife Symphony Orchestra/Carlo Rizzi, Guangzhou Symphony/Krystof Penderecki, the London Symphony Orchestra/Yan Pascal Tortelier amongst others as well as touring internationally in recital. In Autumn 2006, he returned to the UK for a recital at the Wigmore Hall as part of the BBC Lunchtime Series having performed in the same series last season at LSO St. Lukes and was featured as a BBC Radio 3 "Artist of the Week" with broadcasts of his London recitals as well as of chamber concerts from Clandeboye.

He has recorded extensively over the years and in the last three years has recorded all the Beethoven Concert with Camerata Ireland with the final disc released this autumn. His recording of the Reger Concerto coupled with the Strauss Burleske with Marek Janowski and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France for BMG was awarded the Diapson d’Or.

As Music Director of Camerata Ireland, Barry tours regularly Europe and the US and November 2006 marked their first "International Series" with concerts in National Concert Hall, Dublin, Theatre des Champs Elysees, Paris and Cadogan Hall, London. It is only the only all-Irish arts organisation to have joint patronage from HM The Queen and the President of Ireland. 2001 saw the orchestra give a gala concert for President Bill Clinton at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, which was the subject of a Landseer Productions television documentary.

As well as conducting his own orchestra, Barry enjoys play/directing other groups and made his successful debut with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in 2006/07 and in 2007/08 with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. Next season he will play/direct with I Pommerigi di Milano.Barry Douglas received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2002 New Year’s Honours List for services to music.