Craig Ogden
Congregational Church, Garrett Street Torpoint, PL10 1PD Cawsand Directions
Fri 11.09.2026 20:00
Classic FM chart topping Craig Ogden, " a worthy successor to Julian Bream" BBC Music Magazine will perform an exciting and varied programme from his current repertoire
"This recording has confirmed your position among the greatest guitarists." Cecillia Rodrigo
He studied guitar from the age of seven and percussion from the age of thirteen. In 2004, he became the youngest instrumentalist to receive a Fellowship Award from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He has performed concertos with many of the world’s leading orchestras and numerous composers have written works specially for him. In 2017, he gave the world première of Andy Scott’s Guitar Concerto with the Northern Chamber Orchestra, followed by the Australian première in Perth. In the summer of 2019, he gave the world première of Il Filo with Miloš Milivojević, a double concerto for guitar and accordion by David Gordon. Craig gave the world premiere of a concerto written for him by David Knotts in March 2022 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London with the BBC Concert Orchestra which was filmed for BBC4 TV and is currently available on BBC iplayer. In July 2022, Craig gabe gave the world premiere of @Isolation Songs (without words), a new guitar concerto written for him by William Lovelady with the English Chamber Orchestra for Music in Country Churches with HM The King in attendance. The work received its London premiere in November 2022 at Cadogan Hall. In Januaey 2023 he gave the world premiere of a guitar concerto by Greg Caffrey with the Ulster orchestra in Belfast, recorded for BBC Radio 3.
Craig Ogden regularly appears as soloist and chamber musician at major venues, collaborating with top UK artists such as the Nash Ensemble, Carducci String Quartet and the London Tango Quintet, of which he is a regular member. He performed in the concert series devoted to Sir Michael Tippett at the Wigmore Hall and has given several concerts at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. One of the UK’s most recorded guitarists, he has accumulated an acclaimed discography for Chandos, Virgin/EMI, Nimbus, Hyperion, Sony and six chart-topping albums for Classic FM. His most recent recordings are a solo recital disc for Chandos, Craig Ogden in Concert and a new arrangement of the Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach with violinist David Juritz and cellist Tim Hugh for Nimbus Records. He frequently records for film and has presented programmes for BBC Radio 3, BBC Northern Ireland, and ABC Classic FM in Australia.
Craig Ogden is Director of Guitar at the Royal Northern College of Music, Adjunct Fellow of the University of Western Australia, Associate Artist at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and Director of the Dean & Chadlington Summer Music Festival. Craig Ogden plays a 2011 Greg Smallman guitar and strings made by D’Addario. www.craigogden.com
Performers
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Craig OgdenGuitarist Craig Ogden, based for some years at Britain's Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, has drawn comparisons to the legendary Julian Bream with the flair and what an American Record Guide critic called the daredevil quality of his playing. The catholic nature of Ogden's repertory is also noteworthy; he presents guitar chestnuts and contemporary premieres with equal enthusiasm, and he has worked as an accompanist to quite diverse vocalists. A native of Perth, Australia, born in 1967, Ogden took up the guitar at age seven and also studied percussion as a teen. After graduating with honors from the University of Western Australia, he moved on in 1990 for a performance degree at the Royal Northern College of Music and was hired as a lecturer in guitar by the RNCM, becoming the youngest instrumentalist ever to receive one of the school's fellowships. In concert and on recordings, Ogden has managed to win acclaim even for performances in the most crowded field of all: the guitar concertos of composer Joaquín Rodrigo. Making his Royal Albert Hall debut with Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez and recording all three concertos with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Ogden gained not only strong notices but also praise from Rodrigo's daughter Cecilia. More innovative Ogden programs were likewise successful; he gave the British premieres of guitar concertos by American composers John Corigliano and Aaron Jay Kernis (and has commissioned several concertos from British composers). A disc combining passages from the novels of British writer Louis de Bernières with the music they describe made Top 10 on British classical sales charts. The roster of labels for which Ogden has recorded is unusually prestigious, including Virgin/EMI, Chandos, Hyperion, and Sony. Ogden has collaborated with artists, including countertenor David Daniels to release the album A Quiet Thing, joining together for a series of duo recitals that introduced him to U.S. audiences. Another collaborator has been soprano Claire Bradshaw, to whom he is married. By 2018, Ogden, backed by the marketing muscle of Britain's Classic FM crossover music radio network, had notched four number-one albums on U.K. classical charts, including 2015's Craig Ogden and Friends: The Perfect Summer Guitar Album. In 2019, he was heard on the Chandos chamber album Voyage Central Park. Ogden appeared in 2021 with violinist David Juritz and cellist Timothy Hugh on a Nimbus Alliance recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, and later that year, he released the album Craig Ogden in Concert. In 2022, he appeared on a Signum Classics recording of concertos by Christopher Gunning, and in 2023 as accompanist to singer Elgan Llyr Thomas on the album Unveiled. Ogden is the author of a set of right-hand exercises for guitarists, and he has increasingly often commissioned new works for the guitar. He is on the faculty at the University of Western Australia. ~ James Manheim, Rovi