London’s Royal College of Music Appoints New Cello Professor 

The award-winning English cellist Richard Harwood will assume the role 

The Royal College of Music in London has appointed Richard Harwood as a new professor of cello. He will join Raphael Wallfisch, Hélène Dautry, Alexander Chaushian, and Melissa Phelps, among others in the cello faculty. 

Harwood recently stepped down from London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, where he held the principal cello post since 2018. He also served as a member of the Sitkovetsky Trio from 2014 to 2016.

As an educator, he has taught masterclasses at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Birmingham Conservatoire, Royal Irish Academy of Music, and the Bruckner University in Linz, as well as other teaching and summer course coaching.

At 13 years old, Harwood made his radio debut on BBC Radio 3 as the soloist in Elgar’s Cello Concerto and has since been featured on Classic FM, Radio France, MDR, RTÉ and Radio New Zealand. He is a graduate of the Vienna University of Music and the RNCM, where his teachers included Heinrich Schiff and Ralph Kirshbaum. 

Harwood’s other mentors included Mstislav Rostropovich, Janos Starker, Steven Isserlis, Boris Pergamenschikow, Miklós Perényi, Bernard Greenhouse, Valentin Erben from the Alban Berg Quartet, William Pleeth, Zara Nelsova, and Ferenc Rados.

A champion of contemporary music, Harwood has premiered solo works by Dominic Muldowney, Martin Butler, Christopher Gunning, Alex Heffes, Fernando Velázquez, and Benjamin Wallfisch. He is also a close collaborator of Judith Weir and regularly performs her work Unlocked for solo cello.

In 1992, Harwood was the youngest ever winner of the Audi Junior Musician Award, and in 2004, he won the Pierre Fournier Award, plus became the first British cellist to win the “Bachpreisträger” title at the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. 

Harwood performs on a 1692 Francesco Rugeri cello.

“I'm pleased to announce I've been appointed Professor of Cello at the Royal College of Music,” Harwood posted on Facebook. “Looking forward to being on the faculty and building a class there.”