Jeremy Denk

Life

Jeremy Denk is one of America's foremost pianists. Winner of a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America's Instrumentalist of the Year award, Denk was also recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Denk returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and has recently performed with the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Cleveland Orchestra, as well as on tour with Academy St. Martin in the Fields.

The pianist recently toured extensively throughout the US, including returning to the National Symphony led by Sir Mark Elder, and performing with the St. Louis, Vancouver, and Milwaukee Symphonies. He also toured the UK in recital, including appearances in Perth, Southampton, the Bath Festival, and a return to Wigmore Hall. He has also recently appeared with the Britten Sinfonia, and also recently made his debut at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Philharmonie in Cologne, and Klavier-Festival Ruhr, and continues to appear extensively on tour in recital throughout the US, including, recently, Chicago, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Miami, Philadelphia, and at New York's Lincoln Center's White Light Festival in a special program that included a journey through seven centuries of Western music.

Denk's upcoming releases from Nonesuch Records include The Classical Style, with music by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and the complete Ives violins sonatas with Stefan Jackiw. He also joins his long-time musical partners, Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis in a recording of Brahms' Trio in B-major. His previous disc of the Goldberg Variations reached number one on Billboard's Classical Chart.

In 2014 Denk served as Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival, for which, besides performing and curating, he wrote the libretto for a comic opera. The opera was later presented by Carnegie Hall and the Aspen Festival. Denk is known for his original and insightful writing on music, which Alex Ross praises for its "arresting sensitivity and wit." The pianist's writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New Republic, The Guardian, and on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. One of his New Yorker contributions, "Every Good Boy Does Fine," forms the basis of a book for future publication by Random House in the US, and Macmillan in the UK. Recounting his experiences of touring, performing, and practicing, his blog, Think Denk, was recently selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress web archives.

In 2012, Denk made his Nonesuch debut with a pairing of masterpieces old and new: Beethoven's final Piano Sonata, Op. 111, and Ligeti's Études. The album was named one of the best of 2012 by the New Yorker, NPR, and the Washington Post, and Denk's account of the Beethoven sonata was selected by BBC Radio 3's Building a Library as the best available version recorded on modern piano. Denk has a long-standing attachment to the music of American visionary Charles Ives, and his recording of Ives's two piano sonatas featured in many "best of the year" lists.

Jeremy Denk graduated from Oberlin College, Indiana University, and the Juilliard School. He lives in New York City.

Recordings