Young Pianist Thomas Nickell And The Oistrakh Symphony Of Chicago Come to Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall

The program will include Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto, under the baton of conductor Mina Zikri.

Young pianist Thomas Nickell, an artist with "an ever-increasing reputation as a player's player and composer" (Litchfield Live, 23 Jul 2017) will perform as soloist in Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto with the Oistrakh Symphony of Chicago under maestro Mina Zikri at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall (corner of 56th Street and Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019) on Sunday afternoon, June 3, 2018 at 1:30 pm, presented by the Alexander & Buono Foundation. The program will also include Liszt's Totentanz, as well as solo piano selections from the classical repertoire and Mr. Nickell's own compositions.

Program highlights follow:

Beethoven, Ludwig van Piano Concerto No. 2

Liszt, Franz Totentanz

Beethoven, Ludwig van Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55 No. 1 Allegro con brio"

Tickets at $40 will be available for purchase through the Carnegie Hall Box Office at 57th St and 7th Ave, through CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, and at https://www.carnegiehall.org/.

A promising new talent, 19-year-old American pianist Thomas Nickell has already garnered recognition for energetic, refined, and focused performances in music centers throughout Europe and the United States. In a few short years, Nickell has given public performances of important works by Bach, Beethoven, Berg, Gershwin, Khachaturian, Liszt, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, as well as his own compositions.

During the summer of 2017, Mr. Nickell embarks on a tour of the United Kingdom with the Orchestra of the Swan and Artistic Director David Curtis; located in Stratford-upon-Avon, the highly regarded Orchestra of the Swan has collaborated with Mr. Nickell on multiple occasions since 2015. Tour performances take place in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Lichfield, and London featuring selections from Gershwin, Copland, and Dvorak.

In February 2015, Mr. Nickell made his official debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall as soloist with the Orchestra of the Swan. The program featured the United States premiere of England's prominent composer David Matthews' Piano Concerto, Op. 111. Mr. Nickell gave the London premiere of the Matthews' work with the same forces in July 2016. Michael Miller of New York Arts praised the performance:

"At 18, Thomas Nickell, even in a world populated by numerous prodigies who began to play in public at very young ages, still deserves to be considered a young, emerging artist, and this concert showed him to be a notably mature and tasteful one. [...] Mr. Nickell played [Mozart's Piano Concerto in No. 12] with the finely articulated passagework and crystalline tone that has become a sort of lingua franca in Mozart playing on modern instruments. ...Nickell was able to use it to give us a winning and persuasive performance.

Having won us over with this Mozart, Nickell proceeded to amaze us with Olivier Messiaen's exquisite early preludes for piano, still evocative of works Debussy was writing fifteen years earlier, but imbued with a fiery mysticism that is Messiaen's own. Nickell's beautiful tone in the higher registers served the composer's moods and atmosphere well, and he avoided over-pedaling. He most definitely had his own concept of these pieces, and his freedom from the more obvious clichés was impressive" (26 Mar 2017).

David La Marche of New York Concert Review was also highly enamored of the performance: "Musicians such as Thomas Nickell and the Orchestra of the Swan, who place integrity and enjoyment above all else, are a rarity and a pleasure to encounter. I hope to hear them again soon" (4 Mar 2017).

2016-17 season engagements for Mr. Nickell included recitals in Italy and an appearance as a special guest artist at the tenth Annual ABC Gala at Carnegie Hall. During the summer of 2016, Mr. Nickell appeared in recital in London and made his debut as soloist with the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of David Curtis. He participated in recital at the 53rd Festivale Pianistico di Brescia e Bergamo in Mozzo, Italy, and played additional recitals in Bergamo, Milan, and Busseto, Italy during the spring of 2016. Previously, he was heard as soloist with the Orchestra Fiati di Ancona in Osimo and Ancona, Italy, and made his recital debut in León and Madrid, Spain; Venice and Bologna, Italy; and Somianka and Warsaw, Poland. In 2014, Nickell traveled to Japan to perform recitals in Fujisawa and Tokyo.

Mr. Nickell has appeared as soloist with Chicago's Oistrakh Symphony, led by Mina Zikri, and as soloist with Poland's Sinfonia Viva under Tomasz Radziwonowicz.

Mr. Nickell is currently enrolled at the New School, Mannes College of Music, studying piano with J Y Song, who holds a B.A. (Music) and B.S. (Microbiology & Immunology) from Stanford University, graduating with distinction and honors, a D.M.A. from The Juilliard School studying with Jerome Lowenthal, and an M.B.A. from NYU Stern School of Business. Mr. Nickell, who makes his home in New York City, likes to paint in his spare time and enjoys photography, the occasional foray into writing, and reading non-fiction, especially about composers.

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