Pianist Jeremy Denk makes his Australian debut with a performance at Newcastle City Hall this Monday, August 12, kicking off a two-week tour of the country with the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) led by conductor, artistic director, and lead violinist Richard Tognetti. The tour continues with performances in Adelaide and Perth, followed by several stops in Sydney, and rounds out with dates in Wollongong and Melbourne.

The program—entitled “Brahms Piano Quintet”—opens with Tognetti’s arrangement of Bach’s Canons on the Goldberg Ground, based on the Variations aria. Next, Denk offers a solo recital of Ligeti’s Piano Études, as heard on his 2012 Nonesuch debut album, Ligeti/Beethoven, as well as the “Alcott” movement of Ives' Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord. The pianist is joined by the ACO players for another Ives piece, Scherzo: Holding your Own!, and the first act is bookended with Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in F minor. After the interval, Denk and ACO pick up in the same F minor key where they left off for the title performance, Brahms’ Piano Quintet, Op. 34.

In advance of his antipodean adventures, Denk spoke with the Australian’s Matthew Westwood for a feature profile in the paper. Westwood proposes an artistic parallel between the pianist’s prose—Denk is a respected writer, both on his blog and in such publications as The New Yorker—and musical composition, and describes how Denk takes “delight in intellectual jest, with the effect not of dumbing down the subject under discussion, but of speaking the same language as [his] readers.” Read the complete article at theaustralian.com.au.

For additional details on Denk's upcoming performances and ticket links, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.