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Eric Radford Named Honorary Fellow of The Royal Conservatory

Eric Radford Named Honorary Fellow of The Royal Conservatory

Published on November 7, 2019

Eric Radford Named Honorary Fellow of The Royal Conservatory
Championship figure skater Eric Radford was named an Honorary Fellow of The Royal Conservatory at the 2019 Toronto Convocation ceremony, in recognition of his wide-ranging contributions to the arts and cultural mosaic of Canada.
 
Radford began both piano and figure-skating lessons at the age of eight. Although he moved away from home at the age of 13 to pursue competitive figure skating, his parents made it a priority to find a host family with a piano so that he could continue his musical studies. Eventually, they bought young Eric an electric piano, ensuring that he could practice wherever he lived. During his acceptance speech, Radford fondly reminisced about his younger years: “My mom tells people that I was never the kid that she had to tell to practice; I was the kid she had to tell to stop playing.”
 
In 2010, Radford teamed up with figure skater Meagan Duhamel, and together, they won a Silver Medal at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. For their performance, Radford was able to combine his two passions – music and skating. They skated to one of Radford’s original compositions, Tribute, which was written several years earlier, in memory of his late coach, Paul Wirtz. In orchestrating Tribute for the short program at the Olympics, the duo built the song and program together, intertwining each aspect perfectly, pacing the song to support the footwork, and ensuring the crescendos were timed to big jumps. Radford said he wanted the music to elicit “spine-tingling emotion” when played in the Olympic arena.
 
Over the next four years, Radford and Duhamel went on to win two world championships, along with seven consecutive national titles, and ultimately gold and bronze medals at the PyeongChang Olympics in 2018.
 
Radford confidently acknowledges that music and piano performance have played a pivotal role in his success, and even credits his understanding of music, phrasing, and rhythm in helping him become a world-renowned skater. More importantly, however, he says music has kept him grounded in a world where it’s easy to lose balance: "To be a competitive athlete is a way of life, and everything you do is directed towards becoming the best, which can leave little time for everything else. I realized just how important music was in my life, and especially how much balance it brought to my life." 
 
Radford retired from competitive skating in 2018, but finds that music is helping him once again. "After having one goal for those 25 years (making it to the Olympics), finding something new and as exciting is very difficult.” Radford says. "I’ve been playing the piano for 25 years, but somehow I feel as if I’m at the beginning of my musical life. I love how music can be learned and enjoyed at any age."
 
Although athletes’ careers are usually quite short, Radford is confident that his involvement in music will be lifelong: “I credit my piano and music teachers for not only instilling in me a deep love of music and teaching me so much of the piano, but also for those things that have extended well beyond the piano and the classroom, into my sports career, but most importantly, into my life.
 

Photography by Stuart Lowe