Goode was born in East Bronx, New York. He studied piano with Elvira Szigeti, Claude Frank, Nadia Reisenberg at Mannes College The New School for Music (where he currently is a faculty member),and Rudolf Serkin and Mieczysław Horszowski at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He won numerous prizes, including the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1961, First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition in 1973 and the Avery Fisher Prize in 1980. 　　He has made many recordings, including Mozart Concertos with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the music of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Bach. Goode also was the first American-born pianist to record the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas. He regularly appears at the world's leading venues with highly acclaimed orchestras.With Dame Mitsuko Uchida, he is Co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival. He has premiered works written for him by Carlos Chávez, George Perle, Robert Helps, and others. His chamber-music partners have included Dawn Upshaw, Richard Stoltzman, Alexander Schneider, and many others. Goode is married to violinist Marcia Weinfeld. 　　A literary portrait of Richard Goode is in David Blum's book, Quintet: Five Journeys toward Musical Fulfillment (Cornell University Press, 1999). It originally appeared as an article in the 29 June 1992 issue of The New Yorker.