Keyboardist Richard Egarr has demonstrated remarkable range across the early music landscape, performing on multiple keyboard instruments with a focus on the harpsichord while also directing both period ensembles and contemporary symphony orchestras. Born in Lincoln in England's East Midlands on August 7, 1963, he began his musical path as a chorister at York Minster Cathedral before pursuing piano and organ studies at Chetham's School of Music. He obtained his organist's diploma at age 16, after which he served as organ scholar first at Manchester Cathedral and later at Clare College, Oxford. While at Oxford he attended harpsichord courses and received his harpsichord degree in 1986. He continued his training with David Roblou at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and later took private lessons in Amsterdam from Gustav Leonhardt. His first recording as a harpsichordist appeared in 1991 on the Globe label, featuring music by Frescobaldi. Starting in 1994 he undertook one of the rare complete traversals of Johann Jakob Froberger's keyboard output. He joined the London Baroque ensemble as its harpsichordist and, in 1995, assumed the directorship of Amsterdam's Academy of the Begijnhof. From the late 1990s onward he frequently led London's Hanover Band.
In 2006 Egarr succeeded Christopher Hogwood as director of the Academy of Ancient Music, a post he held until 2021, when Laurence Cummings took over. He has also conducted Tafelmusik, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, as well as leading a staged presentation of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2007. In 2019 he was appointed music director of San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and has served as principal guest conductor of the Residentie Orchestra in The Hague. Egarr maintains an active international career as a harpsichord recitalist and forms one half of a noted Baroque duo with violinist Andrew Manze.
Many of his early solo recordings were issued by Globe Records, though from 2000 he recorded principally for Harmonia Mundi. His conducting debut on disc came with that label in 2008, when he both played and directed the Academy of Ancient Music in Handel's organ concertos. Later releases on the Linn label included a performance of Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore and, in 2019, an album devoted to keyboard works by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Under his leadership the Academy of Ancient Music released, on its own imprint, J.L. Dussek's Messe solemnelle in 2020 and a pair of Mozart piano concertos featuring fortepianist Robert Levin in 2023.
