“…Pantcheff’s style is basically tonal, but has a wonderful turn of melodic phrase, by using expressionist dissonance…”
About
Richard Pantcheff is internationally renowned as one of the finest contemporary composers of Choral, Organ, Chamber and Instrumental music. He is resident in Oxford, England, where he specialises in composing and choral conducting. From 2012-2019 he was Director of Music at St. George’s Anglican Church, Johannesburg, South Africa, where he remains as Composer in Residence. He is a Patron of the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, at which his works have been premiered and broadcast regularly over the last thirteen years.
In August 2024 he was appointed Director of Music at the City Church, Oxford (the Anglican Church of St. Michael at the North Gate, Oxford).
All of his music has been published, and features regularly in major international music festivals, as well as in concerts, recitals, and church services worldwide.
There are currently twenty-one commercially-released CDs and EPs in the catalogue featuring his music, with several more awaiting release. Many of these are devoted solely to his music.
His music is commissioned and performed by the leading musicians in their field, such as Benjamin Luxon, David Hill, John Turner, Stephen Layton, Jane Parker-Smith, John Scott, Grayston Ives, Clive Driskill-Smith, Zanta Hofmeyr, Duncan Honeybourne, Iain Farrington, and the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, amongst many others.
Biography
Richard’s compositions are performed and broadcast all over the world, and have received wide acclaim from performers, critics, and audiences for their originality, technical brilliance, and emotional power:
Reviews
“Here we have a CD (Music for Organ and Other Instruments, PFCD205) with music that will be enjoyed by the general audience, along with the six Chorale Preludes which will surely impress the serious organist.”
“Richard Pantcheff was the ideal choice of composer to write a piece in celebration of Britten’s centenary in 2013….” (review of CD Passacaglia on a Theme of Benjamin Britten and other works for Organ).
“Probably the best (piece on the CD) is Richard Pantcheff’s Christmas Carol….”
“…Pantcheff’s style is basically tonal, but has a wonderful turn of melodic phrase, by using expressionist dissonance…”
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"Pantcheff has not forgotten tradition but has breathed new life into it."
"The British composer Richard Pantcheff is one of the representatives of a generation that grew up with modern and atonal music, but has not lost touch with tradition."
"Pantcheff is not a composer who comes straight to the point, relies on superficial effects or tries to lull his listeners with pleasant music. His works are more convincing in the details, on the second listen. "
“Here we have a CD (Music for Organ and Other Instruments, PFCD205) with music that will be enjoyed by the general audience, along with the six Chorale Preludes which will surely impress the serious organist.”
“Richard Pantcheff was the ideal choice of composer to write a piece in celebration of Britten’s centenary in 2013….” (review of CD Passacaglia on a Theme of Benjamin Britten and other works for Organ).
“…Richard Pantcheff’s justly successful career as a composer of uplifting choral church music.”
“Pantcheff’s choral music has an absolutely distinctive, strongly mystical, language…”
“The London Choral Sinfonia is ideally equipped to bring this music to a wider audience, and this already seems to be happening; the album made the classical best-seller lists in late 2022.”
“The Organ Concerto is a powerful work…”
“Richard Pantcheff is an important composer of contemporary British choral and keyboard music…”
“It is quite beautiful in its impact…”
“The 2017 Sonata (for Piano) is a work which will both demand and repay much attention.”
“…alongside new music by Richard Pantcheff – a British composer the London Choral Sinfonia have, in their typically enterprising spirit, championed and recorded. Very much worth hearing.”
“The admired composer and conductor, Richard Pantcheff….”
“An ecstatic articulation of the words, the latter of which giving the impression the singers are caught up in the quietest of raptures. It certainly is one of the more unusual and beautiful Christmas choral works that I have heard in a long time, yielding more and more on subsequent listening”.
“…Richard Pantcheff’s haunting and deeply atmospheric ‘A Christmas Carol’, in which slow, sustained vocal lines waft elusively over an other-worldly organ accompaniment. No boisterous bells, no chirpy chanting, no delightful ditties, but an intense reflection on the miracle of the Christmas story, as related in Swinburne’s text”.
“Probably the best (piece on the CD) is Richard Pantcheff’s Christmas Carol….”
“The style is interesting and approachable…”
“…an articulate compositional voice…”
“…exquisitely rewarding…”
“…totally pleasing to the ear…”
“…a renowned composer with an established reputation…”
“…Pantcheff’s style is basically tonal, but has a wonderful turn of melodic phrase, by using expressionist dissonance…”
“…one of the UK’s foremost composers…”
“This recital deserves to be heard for Pantcheff’s setting…”
“…compelling…”
“…a fine new piece…”
“The overall feeling is sharp and spiky, modulated by a good feel for texture…”
"…full of lyricism, passion, and energy…”
“…powerful…”
“It is with the Five Elizabethan Lyrics by Richard Pantcheff that the programme takes a leap upwards…”
“Pantcheff’s dynamic musical setting, with its vivid contrasts of harmonic colour, reflects in turn the excitement and the glory of the dawning of the new age…”
“…a searching, gritty, dialogue between the two instruments…”
“There are many memorable touches…”
Links
Please visit the websites of performers and organisations particularly associated with the music of Richard Pantcheff