Music Professor Roger Woodward recently garnered another accolade in his distinguished career as a pianist. MusicWeb International lauded his CD, Roger Woodward in Concert (Celestial Harmonies), as one of its recordings of the month for October.
The CD features Woodward’s performances of Debussy’s Préludes Book 2; Chopin’s Three Mazurkas, Op. 59; and Bach’s Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830. It was recorded at Sendesaal Bremen in Germany in 2007.
“This is the kind of release which comes along all too rarely, beautifully documenting a unique moment, and a point of musical confluence at which all of the energy lines seem to be pointing in all of the right directions at once,” reviewer Dominy Clements writes. “....Woodward’s touch at the keyboard turns the piano into something majestic and intimate, orchestral and almost unbearably lonely, fantastically fluid and fearlessly funny.”
Woodward rose to international prominence in a series of collaborations with Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Jean Barraqué, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Tôru Takemitsu, Franco Donatoni, Sylvano Bussotti, Luciano Berio, Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Arvo Pärt and James Dillon. Woodward was recently awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for his recording of the Bach C minor and E minor Partitas and the Goethe Prize and Diapason d’or by the German and French critics, respectively. He is published by the Pendragon and Greenway Presses, New York, and is completing a publication for Harper Collins. Woodward is a recipient of the Polish Order of Merit, Polish Order of Solidarity (for Human Rights), Polish “Gloria Artis” Award and the Order of the British Empire. He is a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres and a Companion of the Order of Australia. Woodward joined SF State in 2002.