Backstage Pass @ WXXI, Rochester w/Julia Figueras_2015.10.16
Loving my return to Rochester with the Philharmonic this week with Maestro Christopher Seaman for Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 22 in Eb Major, K. 482. What an incredible collaborator he is, and what a revelation is his Brahms: Symphony #4; what an astonishing instrument the Phil, and such a great hall the Kodak. Also had…
Mistress ~ Red House Painters (arrO’Riley)
Just wrapped Show #312 of From the Top at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Montana. It was on my 40-mile commute from TippetRise to the gym in RedLodge when my iPod shuffled up Third & Seneca by Sun Kil Moon when I discovered a body of work I hadn’t been so…
A Case of You ~ Joni Mitchell (arr. O’Riley)
Just wrapped Show #311 of From the Top at our favorite Atlanta venue, the Schwartz Center of the Performing Arts at Emory University. Premiered my arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s song, A Case of You Just before our love got lost you said “I am as constant as a northern star” And I said “Constantly in…
Joni Mitchell ~ The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey
Matt Haimovitz and I recorded the entirety of Ludwig van Beethoven’s cello/piano works, and are presently touring the record. Finding proper keyboard instruments along the way can sometimes prove difficult, but we had a few to choose from in the civilized climes of Seattle, WA, where we were performing at the Tractor Tavern for a…
Philip Glass ~ Four Movements for Two Pianos, Mvt. 4 @ Bravo!Vail
From the Top recorded Show #309 at the Vilar Center for the Arts in Beaver Creek, CO on Thursday night as guests of Bravo!Vail. I had a jam-packed week of activities at the festival, beginning with a two-piano, multi-pianist concert on Tuesday night, for which Bravo!Vail Artistic Director and dear friend and esteemed colleague, Anne-Marie…
Erik Satie ~ Je te veux
From the Top returned to the Chautauqua Institution for Show #308 tonight in its opulent and resonant amphitheatre. Despite our vigilant monitoring of impending thunderstorms, the rains held off and our audience was rapt and attentive for spectacular performances by all our kids: my fave performance ever of Chopin’s Andante Spianato & Grand Polonaise by…
Erik Satie ~ Gnossienne #1
From the Top recorded Show #307 in the opulent but intimate environs of the Bill & Sony Rylance home on Commonwealth Ave. Their son, Harry, played two brilliant Scriabin Etudes, and demonstrated admirably how visual art informs music-making: he’d done a talk on Monet’s ‘Impression, Sunrise’ and how it was formative in his newborn conception…
Arthur Golden ~ Memoirs of a Geisha
I’ve come to know that it’s valuable to reconsider books you may have earlier dismissed: having heard Haruki Murakami’s name bandied about in the bouquet of my most admired writers: David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon, William T. Vollmann, to name a few, I years ago picked up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle only to put it…
Leonard Cohen ~ Suzanne
We just wrapped our latest From the Top show, taped in the beautiful, plummy acoustic of Gusman Concert Hall at the Frost School of Music on the campus of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL. Don’t be too jealous; it’s been raining the whole time. All the better to be inside looking out…
Leonard Cohen ~ Suzanne
Just wrapped the latest episode of From the Top, recorded in the sumptuous acoustic of Gusman Concert Hall at the Frost School of Music on the campus of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL. Don’t be too jealous, it’s been pouring the whole time we’ve been here. All the better to be at…