Roger Vignoles, pianist

Roger Vignoles is recognised across the world as a piano accompanist, chamber musician and teacher of rare distinction. His playing is distinguished by his use of colour, an innate understanding of the architecture of a song, and a sensitivity to text and the nuances that lie beneath. He has performed in the world’s major concert halls and venues – Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Théatre des Champs Elysées, Musikverein, Palau de la Música, Queen Eliza-beth Hall and on many occasions at Wigmore Hall. He has been a regular guest at the Edin-burgh and Aldeburgh Festivals, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Granada and in various festivals in the US and the Far East. Between 2001 and 2014 he devised and presented a recital series in Santiago de Compostela, building an audience from scratch to near capacity.

He has collaborated with many of the world’s greatest singers including Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Kiri te Kanawa, Bernarda Fink, Susan Graham, Philip Langridge, Dame Felicity Lott, and more recently Roderick Williams, Christoph Prégardien, Florian Boesch, Mark Padmore, Dame Sarah Connolly, and Marie-Nicole Lemieux. His online (YouTube) recit-al series, ‘Long Distance Lieder’, curated during the Covid pandemic, presented a group of younger singers alongside established names: Louise Alder, Fatma Said, Fleur Barron, Julia Sitkovetsky, Roderick Williams, Nicky Spence, Allan Clayton, Alessandro Fisher and Mary Bevan. Meanwhile his extensive discography includes a long and fruitful association with Hyperion Records, including the complete Songs of Richard Strauss; Britten and Finzi with Mark Padmore; Brahms and Dvořák with Bernarda Fink; Schubert, Loewe and Krenek with Florian Boesch; and for the RCA label, Reynaldo Hahn with Susan Graham, a disc which did much to re-establish Hahn as a composer of note.
He has also performed and recorded with a number of instrumentalists including Gyorgy Pauk, Antoine Tamestit, Nobuko Imai and Heinrich Schiff.

In complement to his playing career, Roger Vignoles is a deeply committed teacher and coach, working with younger singers and pianists. He is invited to give masterclasses and work-shops in Europe, Scandinavia, the Far East and in the USA, where he is a regular visitor to the Juilliard School, Cleveland Institute of Music, Vanderbilt, University of Illinois, Songfest, Marlboro Music Festival and Tanglewood Music Festival. He is an Honorary fellow of Magda-lene College, Cambridge and Prince Consort Professor of Accompaniment at the Royal College of Music.