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The classical pianist Jeremy Denk has just won the Avery Fisher Prize, which caps what’s been a very good year or so for him. (He’s working on a memoir for Random House, among other things.)
I met Denk in 2010 and was immediately impressed with playing and thinking. (His commitment to Ives was palpable.) My story looks 
at his musicality as well as his blog.
The blog often comes to Denk during the six or so hours he rehearses each day. “I don’t set out to be contrarian — but you’re stuck there, next to the instrument, for hours and hours in your apartment, practicing. And inevitably, there’s an amazing amount of stuff that hits your brain — about what you like about the piece, or whatever it is which wouldn’t be appropriate for program notes. And also these loose and slightly disturbing thoughts — about life and playing what’s now this ancient and way outdated music, and how they interact.”
Looking forward to what he comes up with at the Ojai festival.
ALSO: Los Angeles’s own Calder Quartet, a wonderful young group I profiled a few years back, won an Avery Fisher career grant this week. Here’s my story, which tried to get at the chemistry of a string quartet.
Denk is such an interesting character because he’s so articulate, at the keyboard AND verbally. I like his writing as much as his musical interpretations (much like Gould, he often seems tendentious, molding works into his own image). But I’ve been lucky enough to see him perform his Herculean recital of the Concord Sonata, followed by the Hammerklavier. I’ve never heard anyone make sense of the Beethoven like he did. Then, for an encore, he returned and reprised the Alcotts movement from the Ives – and I saw people in the hall weeping! I’ve been lucky enough to see him perform Ives several times.
Just another flavour of the month who knows how to work the gallery .