Gary Beecher

Irish pianist Gary Beecher has been hailed by the Belfast Telegraph as a "subtle, sophisticated player" with "a maturity of both technique and interpretive outlook’.

A versatile pianist, Gary enjoys a varied musical life performing as a vocal accompanist, chamber musician and solo pianist. 

Gary has recently been awarded a Masters in Performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he studied with Julius Drake and Charles Owen. Gary is currently a Junior Fellow and staff accompanist at GSMD.

Gary completed a Bachelor of Music degree at the CIT Cork School of Music and was awarded ‘Highest Placed Student’ and 'Best Overall Student' prizes. While in Cork, Gary’s teachers included Susan Cáp, Jan Cáp, Dr. Gabriela Mayer and Dr. John O’Conor. Gary also spent a year studying at the University of the Arts Berlin where he studied with Jacques Rouvier. 

Gary is a passionate song pianist and was a winner of the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform 2019 with his duo partner Ema Nikolovska. While at Guildhall, Gary was awarded the Guildhall Piano Accompaniment Prize 2019 and was selected to perform in Alisdair Hogarth’s Side-by-Side Prince Consort recital at Wigmore Hall in March 2019. Gary was later selected to perform in the ‘Song Guild’ under the direction of Graham Johnson and was a recipient of the ‘Paul Hamburger Prize’ for his performance. Gary was also selected to perform in the Barbican Centre’s Total Immersion weekend of Nadia and Lili Boulanger’s songs and chamber music, which was broadcast on BBC Radio Three.

Last year, Gary won the Guildhall Franz Schubert Lieder Prize, which allowed him to study at the Franz Schubert Institute with renowned artists such as Elly Ameling, Graham Johnson, Robert Holl and Helmut Deutsch. 

Gary has also received masterclasses from artists such as Eugene Asti, John Mark Ainsley, James Baillieu, Martin Katz, Malcolm Martineau, Joseph Middleton, Mark Padmore and Birgid Steinberger.

As a solo pianist, Gary was the winner of the ‘Irish Freemason’s Young Musician of the Year’ and subsequently had his solo debut with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and conductor John Wilson in the National Concert Hall Dublin, performing Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor, which was broadcast live on RTÉ Lyric FM. Since then Gary has performed as a soloist on numerous occasions with both the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra with conductors such as José Serebrier and Benjamin Pope. 

As a chamber musician, Gary has performed at concert series and festivals such as the Kevin Barry Room National Concert Hall Series, Westport Chamber Music Festival, West Cork Chamber Music Festival Launch, Ortús Chamber Music Festival.

Gary is a Samling Artist, a Britten-Pears Young Artist, an Oxford Lieder Young Artist and is grateful to the Norman Gee Foundation for their support.