Jeremy Denk has written a personal history for The New Yorker titled "Every Good Boy Does Fine: A life in piano lessons." In the article, his second contribution to the magazine, Denk offers insight on the relationship between music students and teachers by recounting a few such relationships in his own life. The New York Times, reviewing Denk's solo recital at Carnegie Hall last week, says his “colossal interpretations conveyed the sense of composers grappling with the ineffable, inventing new vocabulary to express the inexpressible." Following his recent solo debut at Boston's Jordan Hall, the Boston Globe exclaimed: “Denk gave a revelatory performance ... It would be foolish to understate how remarkably talented he is.”
Pianist Jeremy Denk has written a personal history for this week's issue of The New Yorker titled "Every Good Boy Does Fine: A life in piano lessons." In the article, his second contribution to the magazine, Denk offers insight on the relationship between music students and teachers by recounting a few such relationships in his own life, from childhood piano lessons to Oberlin conservatory student to pupil of György Sebők while earning a master’s degree at Indiana University to his own experience teaching there. The article is available in the April 8 issue of The New Yorker, on newsstands now and available online for subscribers to the magazine at newyorker.com. And watch the accompanying video from The New Yorker below.
Denk, who was recently featured in Vanity Fair, first contributed to The New Yorker last year, with an account of his experiences recording Charles Ives’s “Concord” Sonata, and his personal music writing has appeared in Newsweek, The New Republic, on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, and in his own blog, Think Denk.
Last week, Jeremy Denk gave a solo recital in Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, the high point of a 13-city solo recital tour. Denk's “colossal interpretations conveyed the sense of composers grappling with the ineffable, inventing new vocabulary to express the inexpressible," writes the New York Times music critic Steve Smith of the performance. "He is a pianist whose fresh insights in familiar territory warrant continued acquaintance." The program included works by Liszt, Bartók, and Bach, as well as Beethoven's Sonata No. 32 in C minor, which he performs on his critically acclaimed 2012 Nonesuch Records debut album, Ligeti/Beethoven.
Earlier performances on the tour elicited a similar critical response. Following his solo debut at Boston's Jordan Hall, the Boston Globe's David Weininger exclaimed: “Denk gave a revelatory performance ... It would be foolish to understate how remarkably talented he is.” As the Boston Classical Review confirmed, Denk “was in top form, offering reflective and tenderly hewn readings” that revealed him to be “a musician’s pianist in the fullest sense of the phrase.”
Denk returns to Carnegie Hall on May 4, for Vienna: Window to Modernity, a chamber program that also features soprano Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet. For additional details on Denk's upcoming performances, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
To pick up a copy of Ligeti/Beethoven, head to the Nonesuch Store, where CD orders include a download of the album at checkout.
Watch the video from the New Yorker piece here:
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