(ANNANDALE-on-HUDSON, N.Y.)  – Pianist Jeremy Denk will take listeners on a 7,000-year journey through Western music in a solo concert including works by Bach, Schubert, Ligeti and the Beatles in the Sosnoff Theater of the Fisher Center of the Performing Arts at Bard College on Sunday, September 11, at 3pm.

Denk, whose playing was lauded by the New York Times as “bracing, effortlessly virtuosic and utterly joyous,” will create a time-lapse through seven centuries of Western music, from the 1300s to the present day. Denk describes the program saying, “In a series of 25 short pieces, it will trace the evolution of the musical language, the soundscape — an epic story of human thought and ideals, of what we have found important to express in tones.”

The concert will begin with the troubadors (Binchois’ famous ‘triste plaisir’), and with the great medieval master Machaut, then pass through the Renaissance (Byrd, Monteverdi), to the Baroque and Bach.

After an intermission, the music will move forward through the great flowering of the Romantic era. The last piece will return to the troubadors, now rethought by millennial composer György Ligeti.

Composers featured in the program include Gilles Binchois, Josquin des Prez, Guillame Dufay, William Byrd, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Henry Purcell, Johann Sebastian Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Arnold Schoenberg, Claude Debussy, Sergei Profokiev, Olivier Messiaen, the Beatles, John Adams, and György Ligeti.

Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists – an artist the New York Times hails as someone “you want to hear no matter what he performs.” Winner of a 2013 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the 2014 Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America’s 2014 Instrumentalist of the Year award, he has recently appeared as soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and London. Last season, he launched a four-season tenure as an Artistic Partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and performed Bach concertos with Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, and on tour throughout the United States. He also appeared with the New York Philharmonic and LA Philharmonic, conducted by Esa Pekka Salonen, and made his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, as well as at the BBC Proms, both in recital and with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas. Following the release of his disc of the Golberg Variations — which reached number one on Billboard’s Classical Chart — he performed the piece throughout Europe, including his debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and at London’s LSO St. Luke’s.

Denk’s 2015-16 engagements include a 14-city recital tour of the United States — including performances in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, San Francisco, and Miami — and culminating in his return to Carnegie Hall. He will return to the Chicago Symphony performing Bartok’s Second Piano Concerto, and to the San Diego, Detroit, and Baltimore Symphonies in performances of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto. He makes his debut with the Finnish Radio Symphony, and in the UK, appears on tour in recital, including a return to Wigmore Hall, and on tour with the Britten Sinfonia in Cambridge, Norwich, Southampton and London. In a specially curated program of the Ives Violin Sonatas, he also performs in North America with Stefan Jackiw and vocal ensemble New York Polyphony.

Denk is known for his original and insightful writing on music, which Alex Ross praises for its “arresting sensitivity and wit.” The pianist’s writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New Republic, The Guardian, and on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. One of his New Yorker contributions, “Every Good Boy Does Fine,” forms the basis of a memoir for future publication by Random House (US), and Macmillan (UK). Recounting his experiences of touring, performing, and practicing, his blog, Think Denk, was recently selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress web archives. Jeremy Denk graduated from Oberlin College, Indiana University, and the Juilliard School. He lives in New York City.

Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Bard College Conservatory of Music is the world’s first and only school of music to require that all undergraduate students complete a liberal arts degree in addition to their music studies. All Conservatory undergraduates pursue a five-year program leading to two degrees: the bachelor of music degree and the bachelor of arts degree in a field other than music. The innovative curriculum is guided by the principle that musicians should be broadly educated in the liberal arts and sciences in order to achieve their greatest potential. In addition, the Conservatory hosts programs in Graduate Vocal Arts, Graduate Choral Conducting, Graduate Orchestral Conducting, The Conductor’s Institute, and The Orchestra Now.
Tickets are $30 to $50. Priority seating is available at the $50 ticket level. All ticket sales of this benefit concert support The Bard College Conservatory of Music. For more information and to buy tickets, please visit Fisher Center of the Performing Arts or call the box office (845) 758-7900.