About Richard Durrant.
Richard Durrant has performed tirelessly since his graduation from the Royal College of Music & London debut in 1986. He plays c.70 concerts each year at home and abroad and has written, arranged and discovered much new guitar repertoire. Performing, composing, promoting music literacy and breaking down musical barriers has been his life’s work.
Richard’s gift for story telling & presentation is as apparent as his mastery of the guitar; uniquely, for a leading recitalist, Richard plays standing up.
Richard has regularly visited South America, last playing in Paraguay in 2017 with Paraguayan harpist Ismael Ledesma, with whom he has released an album. Richard’s album The Girl At the Airport (recorded with The City of Prague Philharmonic) was released in 2015 and is the final album in his South American Trilogy.
Richard is an ambassador for the Brighton Youth Orchestra, patron of Guitars on the Beach in Shoreham by Sea, patron of Ropetackle Film Society, Fellow of London College of Music and board advisor to Guitarras del Corazon (Paraguay). In 2017 Richard launched his online teaching website The Richard Durrant Academy.
In 2017 Richard launched his solo show Stringhenge featuring Bach on Tenor Guitar (as heard on BBC Radio 3). Venues included Chichester Cathedral, large theatres and tiny parish churches.
Stringhenge continues in 2018 with the release of a double vinyl album and a concert tour on bicycles visiting significant places in the British landscape including Orkney, Edinbugh, Lindisfarne, Sherwood Forest, Oxford and Brighton.
“Richard’s synergy of composition and performance make genre classification obsolete. Six Grooves is full of intriguing and catchy musical ideas which transcend the boundaries of academic or popular music – it’s a game changer for the ukulele.”
George Hinchliffe, founder of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
Richard has recorded two, Christmas albums Christmas Guitars and A Quiet Word form the 13th Century. His incredibly popular Christmas tours have included special guests singer Amy Kakoura and master fiddler and multi-instrumentalist Nick Pynn.
In 2017 Richard formed The Richard Durrant Orchestra to perform his expanding catalogue of larger scale compositions. Supported by The Arts Council of England the RDO gave their first performance in September 2017.
The ukulele
Richard has become increasingly involved with this little instrument. He plays ukes in both standard tuning [GCEA] and ‘5th’ tuned [GDAE].
His ukulele adventures so far have included producing the classic album The Secret of Life for the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and playing uke for Prince Charle’s birthday at Buckingham Palace.
2017 saw the premiere of Richard’s ukulele concerto Six Grooves for Ukulele (a short documentary about this can be found on Amazon Prime) whilst his ukulele quartet Tan y Bwlch was premiered in 2019.
Richard has also played ukulele at Wildlife, Beautiful Days, Scottish Ukulele and Welsh Ukulele Festivals. His favourite ukulele gig was playing unaccompanied Bach during a special performance on top of the Itaipu Dam overlooking Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.