"Sterling and emotionally charged performances...Richard Masters summon[s] practically orchestral color at the piano."
"The famous 30 variations we forever associate with Toronto wonder Glenn Gould sang and danced with care and zing. This was fun, "secular" playing, with many touches of whimsy joining attentive counterpoint. [...] Masters clearly has things to say as a Bach pianist, and the fluent skills to say them."
"...the young and serious pianist’s power and flawless technique were impressive."
Richard Masters is a soloist, opera coach, chamber musician and orchestral pianist based in Blacksburg, VA, where he is associate professor of piano and collaborative piano on the music faculty at Virginia Tech's School of Performing Arts.
Significant collaborations include concerts with baritone Donnie Ray Albert, flutist Valerie Coleman, mezzo-soprano Marta Senn, the late mezzo-soprano Barbara Conrad, and many others. He has appeared with former Boston Symphony principal trombonist Norman Bolter, former Juilliard String Quartet violinist Earl Carlyss, saxophonist Harvey Pittel, and under the baton of the late Lorin Maazel. Masters has performed solo, chamber and vocal recitals throughout the U.S. and in Europe.
As a solo pianist, Masters plays a wide variety of standard and non-traditional repertoire, including contemporary pieces written for or commissioned by him. A strong proponent of contemporary American composers, he has performed world premieres of pieces by Kenneth Frazelle, Charles Nichols, Kent Holliday, and many others. He is an enthusiastic performer of British music from the early 20th century, focusing in particular on the solo piano music of John Ireland. The critic John France wrote on MusicWeb International "Richard Masters approaches [John Ireland's Piano Sonata] with great style and understanding: all the facets of Ireland’s art are present here: ‘…the lyrical, the dramatic, the extrovert and the melancholy – the intense self-questioning and the open, almost naïve, avowals.’"
Recent appearances include performances at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's "Music at the Gardner" series, the National Flute Convention in Washington D.C., the San Francisco Conservatory, the Schola Cantorum in Paris, and concerts in Toronto and Trinidad/Tobago. He has also performed at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, CA and the Percy Grainger Home and Museum in White Plains, NY.
His album "Let Evening Come," a disc of American art song performed with sopranos Emily Martin and Ariana Wyatt, was selected by Chicago Tribune critic Howard Reich as one of the "best classical recordings of 2020." "Percy and Friends," a collection of music by Percy Grainger and his contemporaries, and "In a Time of War," a recording of music for clarinet and piano performed with Philip O. Paglialonga, are available on Heritage Records. A forthcoming disc of Ernest Bloch transcribed for clarinet and piano will also be available on the Heritage label.
In addition to his performances as a pianist, Masters is active in the world of opera and musical theatre as a coach and conductor. He recently conducted performances of Carousel, Fiorello!, Oh, Kay!, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Le Nozze di Figaro, Babes in Arms, and in Summer 2018 served as associate head coach with the Pittsburgh Festival Opera, working on Wagner's Das Rheingold and Strauss's Arabella. In April of 2019, he and his Virginia Tech colleague Amanda Nelson revived The Sap of Life, a show written by the song writing duo Maltby and Shire that was last performed in 1964. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, he was principal opera coach at the University of Texas at Austin.
Richard Masters is a Yamaha Artist. He holds degrees from University of Colorado at Boulder (BM), The Juilliard School (MM), and the Eastman School of Music (DMA).