Roger Robert Woodward (born 20 December 1942) is an Australian classical pianist, composer, conductor, teacher and human rights activist. He is widely regarded as a leading advocate of contemporary classical music.
Woodward was born in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood where he received his first piano lessons from Winifred Pope. Early studies of Bach organ works with Peter Verco were followed by a training in church music with Kenneth R. Long, organist and master of the choristers at St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney. He performed for the papal organist Fernando Germani and Sir Eugene Goossens, after which he entered the Sydney Conservatorium in the piano class of Alexander Sverjensky and the composition class of Raymond Hanson.
While still a student, in 1963 he founded the city's international piano competition with widespread community support. He graduated the same year. In 1964, he won the Commonwealth Finals of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Instrumental and Vocal Competition, the prize for which was to perform throughout Australia with the six ABC state radio orchestras and in multiple radio and television broadcasts.From 1965 to 1969, he pursued postgraduate studies at the Chopin University of Music, with Zbigniew Drzewiecki.
During summer breaks he spent most of his time in London with Arthur Hedley and his library of original Chopin manuscripts. He began performing recitals at the Wigmore Hall and South Bank. During this period he performed throughout Poland at the Twenty-Third International Chopin Festival, Duszniki-Zdrój (1968), at Żelazowa Wola, at the Kraków Spring Festival (1968), at the Ostrowski Palace; with the Warsaw National Philarmonic Orchestra, with regional orchestras, and for Polish Radio and Television.
By 1969 he had also built a considerable repertoire of 20th-century compositions and performed Tōru Takemitsu's Uninterrupted Rest to the composer, who dedicated the work to him. Two further dedications followed in 1973, For Away and Corona (London version). In 1969–70, Woodward toured widely with the Wiener Trio and was artist in residence at the Casa de las Américas before performing at UNESCO 's Jeunesses Musicales where Yehudi Menuhin was jury member. The following year he made his debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall and, on Menuhin's recommendation, his first four recordings for EMI.
In 1971, Woodward performed his first recital at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall with works by Richard Meale, Ross Edwards, Leo Brouwer, Takemitsu and Barraqué, after which he was invited to co-found a series of new music concerts known as the London Music Digest at the Roundhouse. Digest performances of Barraqué's Sonate pour piano were followed by the recording at EMI's Abbey Road Studios. During the same period, Woodward worked with David Tudor and John Cage for the British premiere of HPSCHD at the International Carnival of Experimental Sound and the BBC Proms. Further collaborations were undertaken with Karlheinz Stockhausen at the Royal Festival Hall and with Tōru Takemitsu at the Music Today Festival, Tokyo. A series of performances followed with Pierre Boulez and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
In 1972, Woodward made his American debut with the brass players of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Olivier Messiaen and Zubin Mehta, with whom he subsequently performed in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, New York and Paris. The following year, Woodward worked with Stockhausen on Mantra. In 1973 he participated in the inaugural celebrations of the Sydney Opera House as a part of tours for the Australian Broadcasting Commission and Musica Viva which included first performances of works by Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards, Barry Conyngham and Anne Boyd. A collaboration began with Iannis Xenakis (1973–96) in France, the UK, Austria, Italy and the United States, during which the composer dedicated three works to Woodward: Mists for solo piano, Keqrops for piano and orchestra and Paille in the Wind for piano and cello.
In 1974, Witold Rowicki invited Woodward on an extensive tour of the US with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, during which he made his debut at Carnegie Hall. That year, Woodward founded Music Rostrum Australia at the Sydney Opera House where he collaborated with Richard Meale, Luciano Berio, Cathy Berberian, David Gulpilil and Yūji Takahashi. He began performing with the Cleveland Orchestra directed by Lorin Maazel, and appeared regularly at the Festival d'automne à Paris, BBC Promenade Concerts, La Biennale di Venezia, the Warszawska Jesień, Festival Internacional Cervantino, Wien Modern at the invitation of Claudio Abbado, at the New York Piano Festival, Festival de la Roque d'Anthéron and at the Festival de la grange de Meslay, Touraine, at the invitation of its artistic director, Sviatoslav Richter. In 1975 he premiered Morton Feldman's Piano and Orchestra with the Saarbrücken Rundfunkorchester at the Metz Festival directed by Hans Zender. In the same year he made the first complete recording in the West of Dmitri Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, and became Membre correspondant of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, Warsaw.
In 1976–80, he began working with Kurt Masur and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. In 1977, he premiered Feldman's solo work Piano, commissioned Elisabeth Lutyens's Nox, Op.118, and performed at the Valldemosa Chopin Festival. From 1978 to 1988, he performed the complete Beethoven concertos, three cycles of which were directed by Georg Tintner, and the cycle of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas in 10 cities.
In 1980 he was recipient of the Order of the British Empire and performed the premiere of Xenakis's Mists in Edinburgh. In 1981 he performed for Queen Elizabeth II and, at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, the premiere of Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories In 1982 he premiered Conyngham's Double Concerto "Southern Cross" with the Polish violinist Wanda Wiłkomirska and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Four years later, he premiered Xenakis' Keqrops, at the Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta, and in 1987 he premiered Áskell Másson's piano concerto in Reykjavik. The following year he directed 25 performances of Xenakis's ballet Kraanerg at the Sydney Opera House in collaboration with Graeme Murphy and the Sydney Dance Company to celebrate the memory of Charter 77 and the ongoing struggle of Poland's Solidarność Movement. In 1989, Woodward was commissioned by the Festival d'automne à Paris for the bicentennial celebrations of the French Revolution when he premiered his work for two pianos and live electronics—Sound by Sound. In the same year he founded the Sydney Spring International Festival of New Music (1989–2001) and Alpha Centauri, a new-music ensemble of 23 soloists, which had presented and recorded Kraanerg. In the same year he premiered Rolf Gehlhaar's Diagonal Flying in Geneva with the composer.
In 1991, Woodward was recipient of the Diapason d'or and Ritmo Prize and the following year became Companion of the Order of Australia. He toured Italy, France and the UK with Alpha Centauri during which he premiered Donatoni’s Sincronie. In 1993, Lech Wałęsa, president of a free Poland, conferred the Order of Merit upon him. During the 1990s, Woodward toured Estonia, Latvia and China, co-founded and directed the Kötschach-Mauthner Musikfest (1993–97), and in 1992, directed an all-Xenakis program at Scala di Milano. He performed at the Hollywood Bowl, Gulbenkian Garden, the Odéon of Herodes Atticus, and in traditions pioneered by Nellie Melba and Percy Grainger, he performed throughout Central and Regional Australia. He commissioned a series of piano concertos from Larry Sitsky, the first of which was premiered at the 1994 Sydney Spring International Festival of New Music and cited by the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers (1995). In 1996, Woodward composed Five Songs In Memoriam Takemitsu for unaccompanied cello which was performed by Nathan Waks at the Seventh Sydney Spring.