JURIES 2027
Silver medalist and winner of the Krystian Zimerman Prize at the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition and laureate of the Concours musical international de Montréal in 2014, Charles Richard-Hamelin has emerged as one of the most important pianists of his generation. Named a Compagnon of the Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec and recipient of the prestigious Career Development Award conferred by the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto, he was awarded the Prix Denise-Pelletier in November 2022, becoming its youngest recipient in the history of the Prix du Québec.
He has been invited to many major festivals such as La Roque d’Anthéron and the Nohant Festival in France, the Prague Spring Festival, the Chopin and his Europe Festival in Warsaw, the Festival de Lanaudière and the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. As a soloist, he has performed with many ensembles including the major Canadian symphony orchestras (Montréal, Toronto, Ottawa, Québec, Edmonton, Calgary, as well as the Orchestre Métropolitain, I Musici and Les Violons du Roy), the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, and OFUNAM (Mexico).
He has worked with such renowned conductors as Kent Nagano, Rafael Payare, Bernard Labadie, Antoni Wit, Vasily Petrenko, Jacek Kaspszyk, Aziz Shokhakimov, Peter Oundjian, Jacques Lacombe, Fabien Gabel, Carlo Rizzi, John Storgårds, Alexander Prior, Giancarlo Guerrero, Christoph Campestrini, Lan Shui, Otto Tausk, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, Kazuki Yamada, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Jonathan Cohen.
Charles Richard-Hamelin is also active as a chamber musician. He has performed with Ema Nikolovska, Andrew Wan, James Ehnes, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Marc-André Hamelin, the Dover Quartet, the New Orford String Quartet, the Apollon Musagète Quartet and the Meccore Quartet, among others. A graduate of the Schulich School of Music of McGill University, the Yale School of Music and the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, he studied with Paul Surdulescu, Sara Laimon, Boris Berman, André Laplante and Jean Saulnier.
Charles Richard-Hamelin has recorded thirteen albums, all released on the Analekta label (Outhere Music). Five of these are dedicated primarily to the solo piano works of Frédéric Chopin; there are also five recordings with Andrew Wan, concertmaster of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM). He has also recorded both Chopin piano concertos with the OSM conducted by Kent Nagano, and Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 23, 22 and 24 with Les Violons du Roy conducted by Jonathan Cohen. In his most recent solo album ECHOS (Analekta/Outhere Music, 2025), he continues his exploration of the works of Chopin, combining them with rare Spanish works composed by Albéniz and Granados. Six Félix Awards (ADISQ) and one JUNO Award in 2022 saluted the quality of these albums, which have received widespread critical acclaim worldwide.
The International Jury of the Concours musical international de Montréal is housed at the Ritz-Carlton – Montréal
