About

Orrett Rhoden came to international acclaim after appearing in two BBC documentaries on the 1983 visit of The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh to Jamaica. The documentaries Elizabeth, The First Thirty Years and also the more informal, behind the scenes program ….And The Queen Passed by were also broadcast to celebrate The Queen’s birthday that year. The programs featured Rhoden playing background music while the Royal couple toured Devon House and also used his recordings throughout the entire films.  Subsequently, Rhoden was booked to give his London debut as the soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at the Barbican on 4 October 1984.

The following year Rhoden made his New York debut at the Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. In 1986 Hollywood star and talk show host, Joan Rivers, was intrigued by an article she read on young Rhoden in People Magazine, and invited him to appear twice on her Fox TV nationwide show, Late Night Starring Joan Rivers. Rhoden concerts took place in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Canada and Mexico. A significant highlight in Rhoden’s career was the invitation to perform in an all-Chopin recital at the birthplace of his idol, Frederic Chopin in Zelazowa Wola, Poland in 1985.

Rhoden has been hailed by the Observer Magazine, London, as being “One of the finest talents of his generation”. The legendary Artur Rubinstein - world- renowned throughout the 20th century for his interpretation of Chopin’s music – said of Orrett Rhoden: “Some pianists are not musicians and some musicians are not pianists, but you, young man are both.”

In 1973 the age of 12, Orrett Rhoden won the Howard Cooke Trophy for Excellence in the Jamaica National Festival, the highest award for music that year.  In 2005 he received the award for Outstanding Achievement in the Performing Arts from Prime Minister Patterson.

In January this year he launched the first Orrett Rhoden International Music Festival of Jamaica in Ocho Rios, Kingston and Savannah La Mar with the aim of reviving classical music in Jamaica. He is busy preparing to launch the first Orrett Rhoden International Piano Competition to be held in Kingston, Jamaica in August 2013. His recent double disc recordings are his contribution to the country’s 50th Independence Celebrations.