Biography

 

Roy Holmes holds qualifications from Queens University Belfast, Royal College of Music, London, Indiana University, and Temple University, Philadelphia. He studied piano with Rhona Marshall at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and was a prizewinner at the Dublin Feis and Sligo Feis, as well as winning the Tibor Paul medal as outstanding RIAM student. He has vast experience as a soloist and chamber musician, conductor, lecturer, repetiteur, and until recently was a member of the Keyboard and Vocal Departments at DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama. (Dublin Institute of Technology)

His preoccupation with technique was first inspired by his studies at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik with the renowned Dieter Weber. As a pianist and teacher Weber was constantly rethinking and developing his approach to piano finger technique., a fact that may be borne out by speaking with any student of Weber.

This apprenticeship prepared Roy for his studies with the legendary György Sebök at Indiana University. Here the technical focus changed from fingers to include the rest of the body.
A few years later, now working on his own he fell fully under the influence of the Breithaupt weight transfer/rotation method; the fingers had become almost completely redundant with the sound being made by a constant rotation or a constant dropping and lifting and levering at the wrist, or further up the arm.

During a years study with Harvey Wedeen at Temple University, where he also had classes with Lambert Orkis, Roy began to move towards a personal technical synthesis, realizing for the first time the importance of aiming simultaneously (or almost so) to different depths with different fingers of the same hand, which in turn led him to develop his ideas concerning the shape of the hand and fingers when playing the piano.

In 2011 Roy published a book entitled New Dynamic Finger Power, in which his ideas are formally laid out and explained in detail A few years later he launched a series of workshops directed at both teachers and students, which challenge them to reassess their relationship to what has become the traditional status quo approach to piano technique and piano pedagogy.
In August 2014 he gave the Guest Presentation at the UK annual conference of the European Teachers Piano Association (EPTA) held at Queens University, Belfast

In his more recent workshops for piano teachers he has introduced his Study Editions, which look at traditional pieces through the lens of his work on piano finger technique. He is of the opinion that composers in the 19th century had to present their music in a way to make the work of the typesetter as easy as possible, but modern, readily available music programs enable it to be written differently, with more appropriate and imaginative fingering solutions and hand redistributions. Challenging and Innovative, but immediately seen to be useful for teacher and performer alike, they have been received enthusiastically, and he feels it is now time to make them more widely available.

 

'One thing emerged at the Michael Rippon recital and it was that Roy Holmes, given an experienced singer to accompany does so with great fluency. Less experienced singers have not the confidence to inspire Holmes to do his best work, but with Rippon there were signs that he could anticipate phrases even if the soloist where to go in an unforeseen manner'.
Fanny Feehan in the Irish Press

It fell to Roy Homes ............ in his delightful account of Mozarts concerto No. 17 in G (K453) there was clarity of articulation, impeccable keyboard control, a fine Mozart style, and a delightful buoyancy to the finale.
Leslie McCarrison (Rathcol)

'Capricci by James Wilson is a 12 minute exercise in the impossible for a pianist. So full marks to Roy Holmes' very convincing performance and to his splendid accompaniment in the other two works'.
Ian Fox

'More and more Roy Holmes is showing himself as an accompanist of international stature, his partnership on Saturday with Michael Ripon was a quite remarkable pleasure'.
Charles Acton

'Roy Holmes gave a musically compelling performance of the Beethoven'.
Barra Boydell

'Palinode (1974) by George Newson, A piano work in four sections is very approachable music, quite beautifully played by Roy Holmes, and the same accomplished artist demonstrated his excellent technique and fine command of colour shading in two movements from Book 2 of Debussys Images.'
Leslie McCarrison, (Rathcol)