Jeremy Denk has written a brief personal history for this week's issue of The New Yorker, the Money Issue. In the piece, his third for the magazine, Denk shares a story from early in his career. He is also featured on the latest edition of The New Yorker's Out Loud podcast, discussing his new recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. The album includes video "liner notes," about which Tom Moon writes in Medium: "After hearing him speak with such precision about the details of the work, it’s an absolute delight to hear him use so much of his personality—his poise and exacting sense of order, his restraint leavened by a childlike peering-around-corners curiosity—to bring Bach to life."
Pianist Jeremy Denk has written a brief personal history for this week's issue of The New Yorker, the Money Issue. In the piece, titled "Piano Man," his third contribution to the magazine, Denk shares a story from his early career as a struggling artist and the subsequent lure of a particular gig he hoped could improve his financial situation. The article is available in the October 14, 2013, issue of The New Yorker, on newsstands now and available online for subscribers to the magazine at newyorker.com.
Denk is also featured on the latest edition of The New Yorker's Out Loud podcast, in which he talks with the magazine's Leo Carey and Sasha Weiss about his new recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, released last week on Nonesuch Records. The podcast includes an in-depth conversation about the iconic piece, clips from the recording, the impetus behind his well-received blog, and what future projects receiving the MacArthur fellowship might allow. The podcast is also available at newyorker.com.
Jeremy Denk's recording of the Goldberg Variations includes a companion DVD with video "liner notes," on which Denk demonstrates passages on the piano as he explains certain details of the piece. NPR music critic Tom Moon has written glowingly about these video liner notes for the site Medium. "After hearing him speak with such precision about the details of the work," Moon writes of Denk, "it’s an absolute delight to hear him use so much of his personality—his poise and exacting sense of order, his restraint leavened by a childlike peering-around-corners curiosity—to bring Bach to life." You can read the piece at medium.com.
Buffalo News music critic Jeff Simon concurs, writing in his review of the album: "Denk is not only a wonderful pianist, his demonstrations of the music in a separate disc of liner notes are clearly an idea whose time has long since come."
Denk is currently touring the United States and is set to perform the Goldberg Variations at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and at Chicago's Symphony Center this weekend, a show recommended by the Chicago Reader, whose Peter Margasak cites "Denk's magnificent performance" on the album. The Schenectedy Daily Gazette's Geraldine Freedman describes his playing at Union College last weekend as "an expression of pure joy ... Denk’s intense energy was itself electrifying. It was marvelous playing." For additional tour information and tickets, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
To pick up a copy of Jeremy Denk's recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, due October 21 outside of North America, head to iTunes and to the Nonesuch Store, where orders of the CD/DVD include a download of the album at checkout.
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