Richard Ratliff
Richard Ratliff has performed
as soloist and chamber musician throughout much of the
United States and in Europe, with solo recitals at the
Kennedy Center, Phillips Collection, Carnegie Recital Hall,
Myra Hess Memorial Series in Chicago, and the South Bank
in London. Highlights of recent seasons include solo and
chamber repertoire at the 10th-anniversary Chateau LaGesse
Summer Festival near Toulouse, France; an all-Liszt recital
to inaugurate the university’s newly acquired Bösendorfer
concert piano; an acclaimed series of concerts devoted
to music of Mozart and contemporaries performed on period
instruments; and a gala performance of Beethoven’s “Choral
Fantasy” with Maestro Raymond Leppard at the Christel
DeHaan Fine Arts Center. In addition to nationally syndicated
broadcasts by Parkways Fine Arts Broadcasting System and
the WFMT (Chicago) Concert Music Consortium, he has been
heard on the Minnesota Public Radio Network in live performances
from the Schubert Club of St. Paul. His many concerts on
period instruments have been praised for “conviction
in every phrase” by the Indianapolis Star.
A native of California, Ratliff holds degrees through the doctorate from the Eastman School of Music and has also studied at Cornell University, the Curtis Institute, and University of the Pacific. His principal teachers were Cécile Genhart, Barry Snyder, Menahem Pressler, and Malcolm Bilson. Professor of Music at the University of Indianapolis, he teaches applied piano, piano ensemble, and advanced theory courses dealing with the style and organization of a wide variety of music literature. Former students of Dr. Ratliff have pursued advanced study at Indiana University, Cincinnati College-Conservatory, Peabody Conservatory, and the Universities of Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas, and Florida. His UIndy students come from as far away as Athens, Istanbul, Seoul and Pusan (Korea), Hong Kong, and Tiblisi (Republic of Georgia).
In the fall of ‘96, Ratliff celebrated his 100th performance at the University of Indianapolis with a solo recital devoted to the music of Chopin. Later that season he completed a cycle of the 16 Mozart sonatas for fortepiano and violin with Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Assistant Concertmaster Dean Franke. Chamber music concerts on the modern piano over the years include most of the sonatas and trios of Beethoven and Brahms; virtually all of the piano quartets and quintets of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Dvorák; and important works of the last century from Debussy and Stravinsky to Zwilich and Crumb. Recent performances with the Ronen Chamber Ensemble were characterized by Charles Staff of the Indianapolis Star as “high energy” (Beethoven Trio, Op. 11), “a strikingly dramatic reading” (Brahms C-minor Piano Quartet), and “a jam session in a madhouse” (Michael Schelle’s Godzilla Brillante). “It’s the pianist [in the Brahms Quartet] who makes all the difference and Ratliff is a pianist who can and did make that difference.”
Further comments from the press: “In two selections from Messiaen’s mammoth works Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus and Catalogue d’Oiseaux, Mr. Ratliff impressed with his understanding of the composer’s spatial conceptions, masterfully cohering the long silences, hushed chords and sudden, fluttering explosions of transcribed birdsong. These were all but ideal performances.” -- The New York Times
“...a pianist with great reserves of power, the unleashing of which seems always to be under intelligent control. His command of rhythm and tempo has uncanny accuracy, and his ear for a wide range of sonority never seems to fail him in bringing out the meaning of a passage, a chord or even a single note.” -- The Indianapolis Star