Elizabeth Rich has been called "a poet — with a beautifully cultivated way of playing" (Berlin: Die Welt), "an incontestable discovery" (Amsterdam: De Telegraf) and "an artist of importance and integrity" (Boston Globe). A scholarship student at Juilliard from childhood, she was an early competition winner. Less typical was her training with the late Ernst Oster in applying Schenkerian analysis to performance.Among the highlights of her career are her two Beethoven series, her late-Brahms and Schumann programs and her acclaimed complete cycle of Mozart piano sonatas, of which Musical America wrote: "A triumph . . . Never has Mozart sounded more profound, more complex or more pertinent to the present." (Faubion Bowers)
Ms. Rich has since played Mozart concerti widely in the US and Europe, in Queen Elizabeth Hall, London and opening the "Mozart Days in Prague" Festival in Prague at Dvorak Hall. She gave the first English performance of the Clara Schumann piano concerto at Queen Elizabeth Hall and has recorded it with the two Weber Concerti (Centaur Records). "Evident mastery, both technical and interpretive. These may well be the most persuasive advocacies the Weber Concertos have ever enjoyed." (Fanfare)
Other recordings include a Haydn and C.P.E. Bach CD — "magical aura . . . extraordinary disc . . . Ms. Rich is a magnificent Haydn player. A treasurable release." (Fanfare) and the Schumann Carnaval and Noveletten (Connoisseur Society): "Five stars — a meeting of two kindred spirits: a quintessential romantic composer and an equally romantic player at their best." (Classical Pulse)
Ms. Rich has now recorded all the Mozart PIano Sonatas for Connoisseur Society: the 5th disc was released in September 2005. "So brilliant is the conception and execution of each that it would be my first choice." (Stereophile; Tucson Citizen)
A committed teacher and chamber musician, Ms. Rich has been a frequent participant in the Mt. Desert Festival (Maine) and has partnered the late David Glazer, clarinettist, and Constantine Cassolas, tenor. She also writes probingly about music in her program notes and in published essays. Last year she was "Artist of the Week" on Israeli Radio. She plays widely in recital and with orchestra in the US and in Europe, where she has appeared In London, Oxford, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Zurich, Luxembourg, Oslo, Stockholm, Prague and other cities.
In April 2004 she played In Their Own Words, a recital of Bach, Schumann, Weber, and Beethoven at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. For next season she is offering a program, Late Style, with works that Schubert, Haydn, Chopin and Beethoven wrote at the very end — and her essay on that subject is in the fall 2005 edition of the literary periodicalPequod. In 2006 Ms. Rich will be recording the piano pieces of Brahms and a disc of Beethoven Sonatas.
