Timothy Andres

About Timothy Andres

Timothy Andres (b. 1985, Palo Alto, CA) is a composer and pianist. He grew up in rural Connecticut and lives in New York City. His compositions meld a classical-music upbringing with diverse interests in the natural world, graphic arts, technology, cooking, and photography. He has been praised for his “acute ear” by the New York Times’s Anthony Tommasini and “stubborn nose” by the New Yorker’s Alex Ross. Andres makes his Nonesuch debut with the May 2010 release of his album Shy and Mighty.

An avid pianist from an early age, Timothy (Timo for short) performs widely, focusing especially on music by his contemporaries. “New music cannot be intimidating when played with this degree of skill and zest,” proclaimed Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer of a recent concert. Eleanor Hancock was his piano teacher for many years; later, he studied with Frederic Chiu, Boris Berman, and Elisabeth Parisot.

Recent commissions include a work for the ACME string quartet and New York Youth Symphony (Senior), an octet for members of New World Symphony (Some Connecticut Gospel), an orchestral elegy for the Yale Symphony (Bathtub Shrine), and a chamber orchestra work for the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Nightjar), which was conducted by John Adams in May 2009. He also performed his solo piano piece How can I live in your world of ideas? on the Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series, which was pronounced “irresistible” by Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed.

Timo earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yale, majoring in music and composition, respectively. As an undergraduate, he wrote music criticism for the Yale Daily News and ran IGIGI, a coalition of Yale-affiliated composers. He was a founding member of the Hindemith Ensemble, Yale’s premiere chamber ensemble, and toured Germany with them as pianist and composer-in-residence. He has received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, BMI, and ASCAP.

Timo has spent summers at Tanglewood, Norfolk, Bowdoin, and Aspen music festivals. He first studied composition during high school, at Juilliard’s Pre-College division (with Eric Ewazen) and has since worked with Martin Bresnick, Ingram Marshall, Aaron Jay Kernis, Chris Theofanidis, John Halle, Matthew Suttor, Kathryn Alexander, Michael Klingbeil, and Orianna Webb.