Jeremy Denk, piano

Hailed for his pianistic brilliance and probing intellect, MacArthur “genius” grant recipient and longtime 92NY favorite Jeremy Denk returns with a characteristically bold and thoughtful new program, culminating in Ives’ Transcendentalist piano masterwork.

Denk writes, “This year marks the 150th birthday of Charles Ives—one of the wildest imaginations of American music,” calling his “Concord” “a sonata like no other—by turns craggily dissonant, witty, haunting, and disarmingly simple. We begin with Emerson’s desire to take on the universe, pass through Louisa May Alcott’s more innocent truths on the spinet, and end with Thoreau’s surrender to nature.” About the concert’s first half, he writes, “To flesh out the portrait, we hear from Ives’ hero Beethoven. Two of Beethoven’s most philosophical, probing sonatas frame a suite of jazz, ragtime, and popular song — from Joplin to Nina Simone … Charles Ives didn’t just want to mix popular and classical music. He wanted to erase the distinction, to see how various traditions and musics share the same spark and get after the same truths.”

The same can be said of Denk. Hear him in his illuminating program.

• Beethoven, Sonata No. 27 in E Minor, Op. 90
• Joplin, Bethany Waltz
• Gottschalk, The Banjo
• Simone, Just in Time
• William Bolcom, Poltergeist Rag
• Beethoven, Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
• Ives, Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840–60

Online streaming also available for 72 hours following the performance.