Raymond Dudley

Dudley, Raymond

Raymond Dudley. Pianist, teacher, b Bowmanville, Ont, 20 Jun 1931, d Columbia, South Carolina, 16 Dec 2004; ARCT 1947, LRCT 1949, Artist Diploma (RCMT) 1952. Dudley studied piano with Alberto Guerrero at the Royal Conservatory of Music and made debuts with their symphony orchestra in 1949 and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1951. In 1952 he won the Eaton Graduating Scholarship and a medal at the International Geneva Competition. He made his recital debut 13 Jan 1953 at Wigmore Hall, London. He received the Harriet Cohen Commonwealth Medal in 1953, studied in Milan with Ilona Deckers, and made his New York debut 11 Dec 1955 at Town Hall, subsequently appearing with the New York Philharmonic (1957), at Carnegie Hall (1958), and at the opening (1962) of Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center.

Dudley toured the USA and Canada frequently and performed throughout Europe, first as a Jeunesses musicales of Canada (Youth and Music Canada) exchange artist in 1957. In 1966 he took up the fortepiano or Hammerflügel, forerunner of the modern piano, and began to make a speciality of comparative recitals on the two instruments. Although his repertoire ranged from Bach to contemporary Canadians, he was noted as a Haydn specialist and in 1968 performed all of that composer's piano sonatas in eight recitals at the Purcell Room in London. He recorded several Haydn sonatas for Lyrichord (1965; LLST-7149) and the CBC (1975; SM-309). His A Coronation March was published (1956) by Harris and he contributed articles to American Music Teacher (1965), Music Journal (1968), and Diapason (1969). Dudley taught at Indiana University 1957-63, Florida Southern College 1963-4, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory 1964-79, and the University of South Carolina 1979-91.

In 1979 Dudley completed an integral recording of the Haydn solo sonatas on the fortepiano for the University of South Carolina label (unnumbered). His interest in period instruments broadened: in 1991 at a festival in Kalamazoo, Mich, he performed appropriate repertoire on five different 19th-century pianos.

Concert tours and master-class invitations in the early 1980s took Dudley twice to the Orient with visits to Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and India, and in 1988 he was guest conductor at the Shanghai and Beijing conservatories. In 1989 he took part in the Claudio Arrau 85th birthday celebrations in Santiago, Chile, returning to South America the following year for concerts in Columbia.

In 1990, he was a solo performer and speaker at the symposium 'Remembering Alberto Guerrero' in Toronto, when he also gave a piano master class. In 1991 he gave a benefit recital in Saint-Paul, Que. (where he and his family maintained a summer residence); the event raised over $18,000 for a local hospital. Dudley was a judge for the World Piano Competition 1994-6.