Leif Ove Andsnes Returns to US in January for Beethoven Concertos with Boston Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra, and Eight-City Recital Tour Feb 8 – 19 Continuing his multi-season “Beethoven Journey,” the celebrated Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes returns to the US early in the New Y...
SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCES GRAND OPENING OF GREEN MUSIC CENTER ON SEPTEMBER 29 AND 30, 2012 INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED PIANIST LANG LANG OPENS WEILL HALL IN OPENING NIGHT RECITAL SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2012 SANTA ROSA SYMPHONY AND MUSIC DIRECTOR BRUNO FERRANDIS PRESENT INAUGUR...
Artists and producers from Naxos and its distributed labels were honoured with five Grammy Awards at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards from Los Angeles. Composer Robert Aldridge and librettist Herschel Garfein's opera Elmer Gantry won Best Contemporary Classical Composition. This Naxos recording wit...
Happy listening - we have the Lord of the Rings symphony, 2 Sibelius symphonies, Panufnik compositions, a box set of Simon Rattle conducting Berg and Schoenberg and much more this week. Any of these discs can be purchased on Amazon, with proceeds going directly to support the music. New Musi...
Happy listening - we have a box set of Oriental inspired music, post-war Russian violin concertos masterpieces historical recordings featuring Cziffra, Perlman, Rattle. Many other selections this week. Any of these discs can be purchased on Amazon, with proceeds going directly to support the musi...
Contact: Michael Bishop michael.bishop@iop.org 01-179-301-032 Institute of Physics Physics strikes the right note with classical musicians The combination of physics and music might usually prompt images of Brian Cox playing keyboards for D:Ream, but a new trio, consisting of a professor of physi...
Happy listening - we have Ivan Fischer conducting Schubert, some tangos for you dancers out there and a few soundtracks. Many other selections this week. Any of these discs can be purchased on Amazon, with proceeds going directly to support the music. New Music Adds This Week Schu...
Happy listening - we have ballet music, and a LOT of keyboard: Martha Argerich and Friends live from the Lugano Festival, Vassily Primakov, Murray Perehia and many other selections this week. Any of these discs can be purchased on Amazon, with proceeds going directly to support the music. ...
Happy listening - we have Gypsy music, the crossover sensation 2 Cellos, some Johann Strauss, and many other selections this week. Any of these discs can be purchased on Amazon, with proceeds going directly to support the music. New Music Adds This Week Russian Gypsy Soul: Fiery Gy...
Jeremy Denk Headlines “Ives Project,” Makes Chicago Symphony Debut, Returns to Carnegie Hall, and More “Denk, clearly, is a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs, in whatever combination — both for his penetrating intellectual engagement with the music and f...
Alexander Melnikov North American Tour November 6 - 18, 2011 The Moscow-born pianist Alexander Melnikov will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87—a work rarely played in its entirety—at only two dates on this tour: November 12 at his San Francisco debut and in Middleb...
Leif Ove Andsnes 2011-12 schedule (North American dates in bold) Sep 6, 8, & 9 Hanover, Germany NDR Radiophilharmonie/Eivind Gullberg Jensen Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3 Sep 13, 16, 17 Tokyo, Japan NHK Symphony Orchestra/Herbert Blomstedt Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3 ...
Guitar Frets: Environmental Enforcement Leaves Musicians in Fear By ERIC FELTEN Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement...
The Elusive Maestro Why the process of finding a new conductor makes music lovers weep. By Jan Swafford Posted Tuesday, April 12, 2011, at 11:20 AM ET When the Boston Symphony announced in 2001 that James Levine would be taking over the orchestra in 2004, there was a mighty outpouring of "hmmmm" ...
Leif Ove Andsnes: upcoming engagements October 30 London, UK London Philharmonic Orchestra / Vladimir Jurowski Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 Nov 1-7 European tour with London Philharmonic / Vladimir Jurowski Brahms: Piano Conce...
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| Jeremy Denk Headlines “Ives Project,” Makes Chicago Symphony Debut, Returns to Carnegie Hall, and More |
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Jeremy Denk Headlines “Ives Project,” Makes Chicago Symphony Debut, Returns to Carnegie Hall, and More
“Denk, clearly, is a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs, in whatever combination — both for his penetrating intellectual engagement with the music and for the generosity of his playing.” — New York Times
When Jeremy Denk paired Charles Ives’s “Concord” Sonata with Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata for a sold-out recital at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times was awed to find that “he played these daunting scores, each about 45 minutes, from memory, bringing a rare combination of command and spontaneity to his dynamic performances.” Now the pianist reprises this same formidable pairing for the “Ives Project” at the Music Center at Strathmore (MD) on a program that incorporates readings from the iconic New England literary figures – Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and the Alcotts – to whom the four movements of Ives’s monumental sonata are dedicated (Nov 4). Beethoven also features in Denk’s next major solo recital of the season, when he couples the Op. 111 C-minor Sonata and the “Eroica” Variations with music by Brahms and Ligeti at New York’s 92nd Street Y (Dec 3). Denk showcases Beethoven again in two key orchestral appearances, playing the Third Concerto in his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut with Michael Tilson Thomas (Dec 8–10) and the First Concerto at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St Luke’s under Sir Roger Norrington (Feb 16). Upcoming season highlights also find the versatile pianist returning to the 92nd Street Y to resume his ongoing collaboration with cellist Steven Isserlis for the latest in a series of family concerts, introducing the life and music of Mozart (March 4).
If there is one composer in whose works Denk has inspired universal and heartfelt praise, it is thorny American experimentalist Charles Ives, and it is with the notorious Sonata No. 2, “Concord, Mass., 1840-1860” (c.1915), comprising philosophical portraits of Ives’s four famous New England transcendentalist friends, that Denk established himself as a leading exponent of the composer’s work. Released last fall on his own Think Denk Media label, Denk’s debut solo album – Jeremy Denk Plays Ives – was afforded a rapturously warm welcome. The pioneering composer’s music has traditionally been considered challenging by all but the most die-hard of new-music lovers. Yet in Denk’s hands, Ives’s two piano sonatas were rendered “downright seductive” (Washington Post), winning a place on end-of-year top-ten lists and holiday gift guides from the nation’s most trusted and influential media, including the New Yorker, New York Times, Boston Globe, and Washington Post. According to New York magazine, in which the disc was the only recording to make the “Year in Classical Music” top-ten list, “Denk’s balance of passion and precision makes [the “Concord” Sonata’s] strange beauty come suddenly clear, without losing any of its improvisational radicalism.”
In tribute to Ives’s lifelong admiration for Beethoven – whose symphonies he called “perfect truths” and whose Fifth Symphony is quoted in the “Concord” Sonata – the Music Center at Strathmore program concludes with Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata. Also featuring readings by William Sharp, this November 4 concert serves as the centerpiece of the “Ives Project,” a three-day exploration and celebration of the composer, to which Denk also contributes an already sold-out master class on November 3, before participating in a chamber concert that evening.
This engagement is the first of numerous solo recitals in the pianist’s current lineup, which includes a December 3 appearance at the prestigious 92nd Street Y, with a program boasting two signature works for which he has consistently won praise. His account of Beethoven’s mystical final C-minor Sonata at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival was “alive to every suggestion and nuance in the score…an absolute joy to witness,” while after his rendition of Ligeti’s Études at Zankel Hall, MusicWeb International observed: “This was a monumental performance. Mr. Denk clearly set a benchmark for the Ligeti.” For his December 3 recital, these works will follow two sets of variations: Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Schumann and Beethoven’s “Eroica” Variations, which take as their basis the same theme from the famous Third Symphony.
Beethoven also features in Denk’s orchestral programming this season. For his hotly-anticipated debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Denk undertakes Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto – the composer’s first in a minor key and the one that marked his break with the Classical style – for three performances on December 8–10, under the direction of guest conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. It was with Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto that Denk made his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut this past March, stepping in at the eleventh hour to replace Martha Argerich, under conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The Los Angeles Times found his performance “riveting”; afterwards, “the audience erupted in applause and wouldn’t let Denk go” (Huffington Post). Likewise, the Detroit Free Press found his to be “the most viscerally exciting, emotionally absorbing, and intellectually rich account of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto that [the reviewer had] ever heard in concert.” The pianist reprises the work for his return to Carnegie Hall’s main stage with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s on February 16, 2012, led by famed British conductor Sir Roger Norrington.
In addition to his work as recital and orchestral soloist, Denk looks forward to resuming two of his long-term chamber partnerships. First he joins violinist Joshua Bell for duo recitals in Boston and on a European tour; he then returns to the 92nd Street Y for a sixth season of Family Music with Steven Isserlis. Denk has previously collaborated with the British cellist on many family chamber concerts, each of which offers an introduction to the life and music of one of the great composers; in last December’s “Hardboiled Genius,” he served as guest artistic director to introduce the life and work of Stravinsky. On March 4, supported by violinists Daniel Philips and Pamela Frank and narration by Judy Kuhn, Denk and Isserlis join forces to present “The Prodigy and the Ponytail: The Life and Music of Mozart”: a family-friendly introduction to the astonishing child prodigy who is among the most beloved composers of all time.
A list of Denk’s upcoming engagements follows below, and much additional information is available at his web site: www.jeremydenk.net. The site includes the versatile pianist’s blog, Think Denk, which has earned plaudits among the cognoscenti; the New Yorker’s Alex Ross calls Denk “one of the most interesting writers I know.”
Jeremy Denk’s 2011-12 engagements
November 3 North Bethesda, MD Music Center at Strathmore Master Class / Chamber Concert
November 4 North Bethesda, MD Music Center at Strathmore Solo Recital With William Sharp, reader Ives: Piano Sonata No. 2, “Concord, Mass., 1840-1860” Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat, Op. 106, “Hammerklavier”
November 13 Scottsdale, AZ Virginia G. Piper Theater – Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts Beethoven: 15 Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme, Op. 35, “Eroica” Brahms: Klavierstücke, Op. 119 Ligeti: Études Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 28 in A, Op. 101
November 25–27 St. Paul, MN St. Paul Chamber Orchestra / Douglas Boyd Brett Dean: Pastoral Symphony Brahms: Serenade No. 2 in A, Op. 16 Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Op. 15
December 2 Schenectady, NY Memorial Chapel – Union College Recital
December 3 New York, NY 92nd Street Y Solo recital Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Schumann, Op. 9 Beethoven: 15 Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme, Op. 35, “Eroica” Ligeti: Études, Book I Beethoven: Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
December 8–10 Chicago, IL Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Michael Tilson Thomas Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
January 12 Boston, MA Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Concerts with Joshua Bell Bach: Partita No. 5 in G, BWV 829 Grieg: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C minor, Op. 45
January 15 Beacon, NY Howland Cultural Center Recital Mozart
January 19 and 20 Oberlin, OH Oberlin Conservatory of Music Performance / Master Class
February 2 Birmingham, AL Samford University Performance / master class
February 7 Philadelphia, PA Perelman Theater – Kimmel Center Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
February 12 Beacon, NY Howland Cultural Center Recital Mozart
February 16 New York, NY Carnegie Hall Orchestra of St. Luke’s / Sir Roger Norrington Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Op. 15
February 23 Scranton, PA Mellow Theater Community Concerts at Lackawanna College
February 25 Des Moines, IA Sheslow Auditorium Drake University
February 27 Fort Worth, TX Bass Performance Hall Van Cliburn Foundation
February 29 Schenectady, NY Memorial Chapel – Union College Union College Concerts
March 4 New York, NY 92nd Street Y Family Program: “The Prodigy With The Ponytail”: The Life and Music of Mozart
March 11 San Francisco, CA American Mavericks Cowell: Piano Concerto Chamber music with members of the San Francisco Symphony
March 22 Ann Arbor, MI Hill Auditorium American Mavericks San Francisco Symphony / Michael Tilson Thomas
March 30 New York, NY Zankel Hall American Mavericks Members of the San Francisco Symphony
April 19 and 21 St. Paul, MN Music Room at SPCO Center Kagel: Morceau de Concours for two trumpets Ives: Largo for violin, clarinet and piano Ligeti: Selected Études Ives: Piano Trio
April 20 and 22 St. Paul, MN Music Room at SPCO Center Elgar: Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84
May 8–14 European recital tour with Joshua Bell May 8: Madrid May 9: London May 10: Paris May 14: Berlin
May 19 Washington, DC Washington Performing Arts Society
June 3 Chicago, IL Chicago Symphony presents “The Collaborative Pianist”
June 21–23 San Francisco, CA San Francisco Symphony Orchestra / Michael Tilson Thomas Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat
July 18 College Park, MD Gildenhorn Recital Hall University of Maryland Kapell Competition
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