Pianist Jeremy Denk has been named the 2014 Avery Fisher Prize recipient for his outstanding contributions to the music world and his artistic excellence and will be celebrated officially by the Avery Fisher Artist Program later this season.

Avery Fisher Prize recipients are chosen by the Executive Committee of the Program for their excellence as musicians as well as their contributions to the music world. Jeremy Denk will be formally honored as the 2014 Avery Fisher Prize recipient on Thursday, May 29, at an invitational ceremony to be held at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. As the recipient of this honor, Denk receives a monetary award of $75,000. On a marble plaque in Avery Fisher Hall, his name will join the 21 previous Prize recipients, including Richard Goode (1980), Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (1999), Edgar Meyer (2000), and Kronos Quartet (2011).

Denk has also just been named the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's newest Artistic Partner, marking Denk's first appointed position with an orchestra; his tenure will begin in the 2014–15 season.

"Jeremy’s star is clearly on the rise and we consider it a major coup for him to join us," says SPCO President Bruce Coppock. "I have had the pleasure of witnessing Jeremy’s extraordinary gifts since serving on the jury that chose him as the 1999 winner of the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music prize, his first major public recognition. Jeremy’s rapacious curiosity and rhapsodic imagination—and his prodigious pianistic skills—have combined to fuel his growth into an extraordinary—potentially iconic—artist. We know that Jeremy will bring every bit of his imagination to his work with the SPCO’s musicians, with many of whom he enjoys longstanding personal and musical friendships. It will be a great partnership—most especially for our audiences, who will be taken on a great musical journey, juxtaposing music of every period from the Baroque to the 20th and 21st centuries in fascinating, stimulating ways."

Denk’s recording of music by Ligeti and Beethoven for Nonesuch Records was included on many Best of 2012 lists, including those of The New Yorker, Washington Post and NPR Music; his second Nonesuch recording released in September 2013, is of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, a work with which Denk has had a long and close relationship throughout his career. The album reached number one on Billboard’s Classical Chart and was featured in Best of 2013 lists by The New Yorker and the New York Times. Following the success of those recordings, Denk and the SPCO will make a recording for Nonesuch during his partnership of an intriguing combination of works by Bach and Stravinsky.

Denk has performed with the SPCO many times in recent years, including performances this season of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 and the Brahms Piano Quintet. Denk’s 2014–15 SPCO season performances will include Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 as well as a program featuring a pairing of works by Bach and Janáček. In addition to performances of chamber music and well-known piano concertos, his work with the SPCO over the next three years will include collaborations with vocal artists and an emphasis on commissioning new works by both rising and major American composers. During the 2016–17 season, Denk and the SPCO will make a North American tour under the auspices of Opus 3 Artists.

"Rehearsing Mozart with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra last fall was one of my happiest experiences," says Denk; "they have the kind of openness and freedom that I have always dreamed of in a relationship with an orchestra. I am excited to pursue various musical curiosities and enthusiasms with them, to create interesting programming, and, most importantly, to have fun."

For additional details, visit thespco.org.

Jeremy Denk was named a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and Musical America’s 2014 Instrumentalist of the Year. He is the music director of the 2014 Ojai Music Festival this summer, for which he has written the libretto to a new comic opera, The Classical Style, by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky. Denk is also known for his original and insightful writing on music, which has appeared in the New Yorker, the New Republic, The Guardian, and on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. For his work as a writer and pianist, Out magazine included Denk on its "Out 100" list celebrating the most compelling people of 2013.