Pianist David Greilsammer Performs Program of His New Sony Classical Album Scarlatti:Cage:Sonatas at New York’s Poisson Rouge on May 27

Pianist David Greilsammer – renowned for his “penchant for devising programs that challenge our attitudes” (The Telegraph) – will showcase his boundary-defying new Sony Classical album Scarlatti:Cage:Sonatas in a 7:30 p.m. performance on Tuesday May 27 at downtown New York hotspot Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker St. in Greenwich Village). Greilsammer’s third album as an exclusive Sony Classical artist juxtaposes keyboard sonatas by the great Baroque master Domenico Scarlatti with sonatas for prepared piano by the ever-influential American experimentalist John Cage. Seated between two pianos – the first traditional and the other prepared – Greilsammer will be alternating between works of Scarlatti and Cage, in a non-stop sixty-minute recital. The pianist says about the Scarlatti/Cage program: “More than 200 years separate the two composers, but their sonatas seem to be so much alike: short, provocative, passionate, full of wild colors and bursting with fresh rhythms. As true visionaries ahead of their time, they treated the sonata not as a rigid and momentous form but as a magic space devoted to creation and experimentation.” Greilsammer discusses the relationship further in a YouTube video.

Upon the album’s earlier European release, La Tribune de Genève called Scarlatti:Cage:Sonatas “the most captivating disc of the moment.” It was the Scarlatti/Cage program that served as the vehicle for Greilsammer’s recent Kennedy Center recital debut; after noting the “kinship between the composers’ sonatas: their shared binary form, striking originality, and creation of miniature soundscapes,” the Washington Post praised Greilsammer’s “heart-stoppingly beautiful account of Scarlatti’s Sonata in D minor, K. 213, exquisite in its lyricism and cantabile line.” There was also praise for his rendition of Cage’s Sonata V, which “emerged like a joyous, free-flowing jam session with an Indonesian gamelan orchestra.” The review concluded: “Greilsammer’s bracing sense of adventure is to be applauded. For his playing – always searching and never boring – was anything but ordinary.”

Greilsammer’s new disc follows two previous Sony releases: Baroque Conversations, “an astonishing achievement, a triumph of innovative programming and brilliantly probing execution” according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which christened him “an artist of major importance,” and Mozart In-Between, which was named one of the “Best of 2013” by the New York Times.

Scarlatti:Cage:Sonatas @ LPR

Tuesday May 27 at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.)

Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, NYC 10012

Program:

Scarlatti: Sonata in D minor K. 213; Cage: Sonata no. 14

Scarlatti: Sonata in D Minor K. 141; Cage: Sonata no. 13

Scarlatti: Sonata in E Major K. 381; Cage: Sonata no. 12

Scarlatti: Sonata in B Minor K. 87; Cage: Sonata no.1

Scarlatti: Sonata in B Minor K. 27; Cage: Sonata no. 16

Scarlatti: Sonata in A minor K. 175; Cage: Sonata no.11

Scarlatti: Sonata in E major K. 531; Cage: Sonata no. 5

Scarlatti: Sonata in D Major K. 492

In advance, general admission tickets are $20 (seated) and $15 (standing), available online at http://lepoissonrouge.inticketing.com; at the door, tickets are $25. For more information: 212-505-FISH or online here.

David Greilsammer: upcoming engagements

May 9

La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland 

Arc en Scènes-Théâtre

Geneva Camerata 

David Greilsammer, conductor; Simone Kermes, soprano

Rameau, Mozart, Martin Jaggi, Vivaldi, Porpora

May 12

Geneva, Switzerland

Geneva Camerata 

David Greilsammer, conductor; Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin

“From Vienna to Budapest”: Haydn, Ligeti, Beethoven

May 13

Geneva, Switzerland

Geneva Camerata 

“Forgotten Voices”

May 15

Saint-Étienne, France (Artist in Residence) 

Opéra Théâtre de Saint-Étienne

Piano Festival Opening 

Scarlatti:Cage:Sonatas 

David Greilsammer, piano & prepared piano

May 20

Saint-Étienne, France (Artist in Residence) 

Opéra Théâtre de Saint-Étienne

Orchestra Symphonique Saint-Étienne Loire 

David Greilsammer, conductor & piano

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 9

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4

May 27

New York City

Le Poisson Rouge

Scarlatti:Cage:Sonatas 

David Greilsammer, piano & prepared piano

June 10

Tel Aviv, Israel 

Israeli Conservatory of Music

Meitar Ensemble (Artist in Residence)

New Works for ensemble by 21st century composers

David Greilsammer, conductor

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