Craig Ogden

Guitarist Craig Ogden, who spent several years on the faculty at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music, has been likened to the celebrated Julian Bream for the expressive flair and what an American Record Guide reviewer termed the daredevil character of his interpretations. Equally striking is the breadth of his programming, which places familiar guitar repertoire alongside newly composed works with the same commitment, while his role as accompanist has embraced an unusually wide range of singers.

Born in Perth, Australia, in 1967, Ogden began playing the guitar at age seven and added percussion studies during his teenage years. After completing an honors degree at the University of Western Australia, he relocated in 1990 to pursue a performance diploma at the Royal Northern College of Music, where he was subsequently appointed lecturer in guitar and became the youngest instrumentalist awarded one of the institution’s fellowships. Even in the densely populated domain of Joaquín Rodrigo’s guitar concertos, Ogden has earned consistent praise; his Royal Albert Hall debut in the Concierto de Aranjuez, followed by a complete recording of the three concertos with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, drew strong critical notices and warm endorsement from the composer’s daughter Cecilia. He has also introduced British audiences to concertos by American composers John Corigliano and Aaron Jay Kernis, and he has commissioned further works from British composers. A recording that interwove excerpts from the novels of Louis de Bernières with music evoked by those passages reached the Top 10 of British classical sales charts.

Ogden’s discography appears on an impressive array of labels, among them Virgin/EMI, Chandos, Hyperion, and Sony. His collaborations include a joint album, A Quiet Thing, with countertenor David Daniels, and the pair subsequently toured together in duo recitals that brought Ogden before American listeners for the first time. Another frequent partner has been soprano Claire Bradshaw, his spouse. By 2018, supported by the promotional reach of Britain’s Classic FM network, he had secured four number-one positions on the U.K. classical album chart, one of them being the 2015 release Craig Ogden and Friends: The Perfect Summer Guitar Album. In 2019 he appeared on the Chandos chamber recording Voyage Central Park. The following year he joined violinist David Juritz and cellist Timothy Hugh for a Nimbus Alliance account of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, and later issued the solo album Craig Ogden in Concert. A 2022 Signum Classics disc featured concertos by Christopher Gunning, and in 2023 he served as accompanist to singer Elgan Llyr Thomas on the album Unveiled. Ogden has published a collection of right-hand exercises for guitarists and continues to commission new works for the instrument; he also maintains a teaching position at the University of Western Australia.