Composer Timothy Andres has been nominated for Project 440, a new commissioning program from Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and New York radio station WQXR that will culminate in the commissioning of four new works, to be premiered as part of the orchestra's 2011-2012 Carnegie Hall season. Comments from the public, via WQXR's website, will be a guiding factor in determining the final four composers to receive commissions.

Timothy Andres's debut album, Shy and Mighty, recently released on Nonesuch, is a Pick of the Week from WNYC's Soundcheck. Says host John Schaefer: "He’s a young composer but he seems to have already worked through his influences—the rock ones and the classical ones like Brahms, Mahler, and Philip Glass—and developed a personal voice. It’s an impressive debut from the composer Timothy Andres."

Shy and Mighty, Timothy Andres's debut album, receives four stars from the Guardian. "Andres is unquestionably a distinctive talent, with a fine teasing ear for texture and harmony," reads the review. Even with influences from Adams and Reich to Beethoven and Mahler heard on Shy and Mighty, "It all coheres ... and glides across stylistic boundaries in a totally unselfconscious way."

Timothy Andres's debut album, Shy and Mighty, tops the list of Recommended New CDs from Alex Ross, the music critic of The New Yorker, on his site, The Rest Is Noise. The Awl calls the album "gorgeous" and is streaming the track "How can I live in your world of ideas?” Andres will perform the piece next month at New York's Merkin Hall as part of the Tribeca New Music Festival.

Timothy Andres's debut album, Shy and Mighty, released earlier this week on Nonesuch, has been described by New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn as "a richly imaginative 10-movement work for two pianos." The album has now received a perfect five stars from Audiophile Audition, which cites its "fresh new and creative take" and suggests Shy and Mighty "should appeal to a wide variety of listening tastes."

Timothy Andres performed the music of his new album, Shy and Mighty, in New York City on Monday. He performs again in New York today in two concerts with the Metropolis Ensemble: a free mid-day event at Trinity Wall Street and a ticketed show at the Angel Orensanz Center, featuring the world premiere of Andres's Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno and the New York premiere of his Home Stretch, plus works by Anna Clyne and Mozart.

Timothy Andres makes his Nonesuch debut with the release of Shy and Mighty on Tuesday, May 18, one day after he performs the piece at New York's (Le) Poisson Rouge. The New Haven Advocate says Andres's "indulgence of pianistic virtuosity ... and his undogmatic embrace of varied musical styles are lively and fully committed" on Shy and Mighty. "Andres’ most interesting achievement" may be its "incredible listenability."

Timothy Andres, whose debut recording, Shy and Mighty, is due out on Nonesuch May 18, is featured in a Wall Street Journal article examining how the young composer, raised on the classical canon, was later introduced to a new world of music that included everything from iconic classic rock to contemporary classical icons like Steve Reich and John Adams, and how this has influenced his own work.

The recent Louis Andriessen-curated concerts at Carnegie Hall show the composer to have "an undiminished capacity for making mischief," says The New Yorker's Alex Ross. Ross looks at other contemporary composers creating outside "a stylistic party line," and calls Timothy Andres’s forthcoming Nonesuch debut, Shy and Mighty, "the kind of sprawling, brazen work that a young composer should write," achieving "an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene."