Timo Andres
Andres offers a recital program interspersing Chopin Mazurkas and Joplin Rags, exploring the parallels and differences of two composers inextricably linked to the pianistic traditions they helped create, and whose music has shaped—and continues to shape—their respective national music identities. The program will also include selections of Andres’s own solo piano music.
Timo Andres (b. 1985, Palo Alto, CA) is a composer and pianist who grew up in rural Connecticut and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Notable works include Everything Happens So Much for the Boston Symphony, Strong Language for the Takács Quartet, and The Blind Banister, a concerto for Jonathan Biss, which was a 2016 Pulitzer Prize Finalist.
As a pianist, Timo Andres has appeared with the LA Phil, North Carolina Symphony, Albany Symphony, New World Symphony, and in many collaborations with Andrew Cyr and Metropolis Ensemble. Other collaborators include John Adams, Becca Stevens, Jeffrey Kahane, Gabriel Kahane, Brad Mehldau, the Kronos Quartet, and Philip Glass, with whom he has performed the complete Glass Etudes around the world. Andres also frequently works with singer and composer Sufjan Stevens.
In 22/23, Andres performed Thomas Adès’s In Seven Days with Ruth Reinhardt and the Louisville Orchestra; makes his solo recital debut at The Cliburn; co-curates programs honoring his teacher, Ingram Marshall, in New York and San Francisco; collaborates with Philip Glass and choreographer Justin Peck; a new orchestral piece for the Colorado Music Festival, Dark Patterns, premiered in July.
A Nonesuch Records and Yamaha/Bösendorfer Artist, Timo Andres is on the composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music at the New School.
PROGRAM
Frederic Chopin: Mazurka Op. 24 no. 2
Scott Joplin: Magnetic Rag
Chopin: Mazurka Op. 17 no. 1
Joplin: Gladiolus Rag
Chopin: Mazurka Op. 59 no. 3
Joplin: A Breeze From Alabama
Chopin: Mazurka Op. 24, no. 4
Joplin: Euphonic Sounds
Chopin: Mazurka Op. 56 no. 1
Joplin: Paragon Rag
Timo Andres: selections to be announced
Ethan Iverson-curator’s note
There are two hour-long concerts every night at 7:30 and 9, more like jazz practice than classical convention. We expect to turn the room over (there are only 60 seats) so most of those who are performing formally notated works will probably play the same program twice (a comparatively rare opportunity to enjoy such a liberating sequence).
Friday 9 Timo Andres fits the bill: he’s a true composer-pianist of the old school, a proper virtuoso and a major voice in composition. To my delight, Timo has offered to play his program of Joplin Rags and Chopin Mazurkas. I have also insisted that he include a few of his own remarkable rhythmic and poetic piano pieces, which someday will be thought of as classic Americana.