Malcolm Proud, Keyboards
The Irish harpsichordist and organist, Malcolm Proud was born and educated in Dublin where he read music at Trinity. In 1982 he won 1st prize at the Edinburgh International Harpsichord Competition.
In demand as a soloist and continuo player he has worked with singers Emma Kirkby, Nancy Argenta, Isabelle Poulenard, John Elwes, Julianne Baird and Lenneke Ruiten, flautists Wilbert Hazelzet and Lisa Beznosiuk, violinists Maya Homburger, Pavlo Beznosiuk, Monica Huggett, Nadja Zwiener and Elizabeth Wallfisch, oboists Marcel Ponseele and Paul Goodwin, and bass viol players Sarah Cunningham and John Dornenburg. He has performed harpsichord concertos by Bach with the Chandos Baroque Players in Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa and Pasadena, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Gustav Leonhardt in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London and Birmingham and with the English Baroque Soloists under John Eliot Gardiner in Zürich. As a continuo player he participated in John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, toured Japan in 2001 with tenor Mark Padmore in the Purcell Quartet’s production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo and in 2005 played in a reconstruction of Bach’s St. Mark’s Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music in Lucerne.
Malcolm Proud is a full time lecturer on the BA Degree Course in Music at the Waterford Institute of Technology and organist and choirmaster at St. Canice’s Cathedral in Kilkenny.
He has toured the U.S. and Canada several times with performances at Harvard University and the Frick Museum in New York. Regular appearances in the U.K. have been in London’s Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, St. John’s Smith Square, Conway Hall, the Barbican, the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, and Cadogan Hall. As an organist he has performed on both historic and modern instruments at Valère-Sion in Switzerland, Ottobeuren near Munich, Fagervik in Finland and Udine in Italy, the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Antwerp Cathedral, Aveiro in Portugal, and Perchtoldsdorf, Maria Enzersdorf and Propstei St. Gerold in Austria.
His recordings for EMI, Virgin Classics, Meridian, Hyperion, Claddagh, Maya, Centaur, DG Archiv include Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the 5th Brandenburg Concerto with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Zelenka’s Lamentations with Chandos Baroque Players, the six sonatas for violin and harpsichord with Maya Homburger and the three sonatas for bass viol and harpsichord and Marin Marais’ suites with the American viola da gambist John Dornenburg. He has also recorded Purcell’s harpsichord music. His CD of Bach’s Clavier Übung Bk. 3 recorded on the Metzler organ in Stein am Rhein, Switzerland has been critically acclaimed.
His recording of Biber’s Mystery Sonatas with Maya Homburger and Camerata Kilkenny won the the prestigious German music industry Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik Award in 2007.
In July 09 he gave a recital on the 1610 Compenius organ. at Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark. He has just returned from the U.S. having given solo organ recitals in Boston MA and Charlottesville VA.
His most recent recording of the 5th Brandenburg Concerto with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloist has just been released to critical acclaim. Early in 2010 his recordings of Mozart Concert Arias with Dutch soprano Lenneke Ruiten and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra and Italian Baroque music with Monica Huggett and the Irish Baroque Orchestra Chamber Soloists are due for release In February 2010 he will record Bach’s Musical Offering with Dutch baroque flautist Wilbert Hazelzet and Camerata Kilkenny in Belgium. Next summer he will make his BBC Proms concerto début with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists.
