Jeremy Denk

Celebrate the Bard College Conservatory of Music’s 10th anniversary with one of America’s foremost pianists.

"The idea of this program is a musical analogy to time-lapse photography: a journey in two hours through seven centuries of Western music, from the 1300s until the present day. In a series of 25 short pieces, it will trace the evolution of the musical language, the soundscape—an epic story of human thought and ideals, of what we have found important to express in tones."
—Jeremy Denk

The concert will begin with the troubadours (Gilles Binchois's famous "Triste plaisir"), and with the great medieval master Guillame de Machaut, then pass through the Renaissance (William Byrd, Claudio Monteverdi), to the Baroque and Johann Sebastian Bach. After an intermission, the music will move forward through the great flowering of the Romantic era. The last piece will return to the troubadours, now rethought by millennial composer György Ligeti. Composers featured in the program include: Gilles Binchois, Josquin des Prez, Guillaume Dufay, William Byrd, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Henry Purcell, Johann Sebastian Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Arnold Schoenberg, Claude Debussy, Sergei Profokiev, Olivier Messiaen, the Beatles, John Adams, and György Ligeti.

Learn more about pianist Jeremy Denk’s career as a musician and writer at jeremydenk.net.