The pianist Julius Drake lives in London and enjoys an international reputation as one of the finest instrumentalists in his field, collaborating with many of the world’s leading artists, both in recital and on disc. The New Yorker has described him as the “collaborative pianist nonpareil”. He appears regularly at all the major music centres and festivals: theAldeburgh, Edinburgh, Munich, Schubertiade, and Salzburg Music Festivals; Carnegie Halland Lincoln Center New York; The Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and Philharmonie, Berlin; the Châteletand Musée du Louvre Paris; La Scala, Milan and Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid; Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Vienna; and Wigmore Hall and BBC Proms London. Director of the Perth International Chamber Music Festival in Australia from 2000 -2003, Julius Drake was also musical director of Deborah Warner’s staging of Janáček’s Diary of One Who Vanished, touring to Munich, London, Dublin, Amsterdam and New York. Since 2009 he hasbeen Artistic Director of the Machynlleth Festival in Wales.
Julius Drake’s passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise song series for Wigmore Hall, London, The Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, the 92nd Y, New York and the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin. His annual series of song recitals –Julius Drake and Friends –in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London, has featured recitals with many outstanding vocal artists including Sir Thomas Allen, Olaf Bär, Ian Bostridge, Dame Sarah Connolly, Alice Coote, Lucy Crowe, Angelika Kirchschlager, Iestyn Davies, Veronique Gens, Sergei Leiferkus, Dame Felicity Lott, Simon Keenlyside, Christopher Maltman, Mark Padmore, and Sir Willard White. Julius Drake is frequently invited to perform at international chamber music festivals –most recently,Lockenhaus in Austria; West Cork in Ireland; Oxford in England; Boswil in Switzerland and Delft in the Netherlands.
Julius Drake holds a Professorship at Graz University for Music and the Performing Arts in Austria, where he has a class for song pianists, and is Professor of collaborative piano at the Guildhall School of Music in London. He is regularly invited to give master classes worldwide; recently in Aldeburgh, Brussels, Utrecht, Cincinnati, New York, Toronto, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, Vienna, and at the Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien.
