Maverick Concerts, the oldest continuous summer chamber music festival in America, presents the brilliant young jazz pianist Dan Tepfer tonight, Sept. 7, at 6:30 p.m. The program will include Tepfer's jazz improvisations on J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations.
One of his generation's extraordinary talents, Dan Tepfer has made a name for himself as a pianist-composer of wide-ranging ambition, individuality, and élan-"a remarkable musician" in the words of the
Washington Post, one "who refuses to set himself limits" in those of France's Télérama. Based in New York, Tepfer has performed with some of the leading lights in jazz and has crafted a discography already striking for its breadth and depth-ranging from probing solo improvisation and intimate duets to trio albums rich in melodic allure. Tepfer, whose mother was an opera singer and grandfather a jazz pianist, began classical piano studies at age six at the Conservatoire Paul Dukas in Paris.
In 2011, Tepfer released, to great acclaim, the album Goldberg Variations / Variations, performing J.S. Bach's masterpiece and improvising upon it as well, to "build a bridge across centuries and genres," as
The Wall Street Journal put it. New York magazine called the album "elegant, thoughtful and thrilling," while DownBeat declared it "one of the more audacious, accomplished recordings of 2011."
Tepfer has said that Bach's using the same chord progression throughout the Goldberg Variations is a musical process not as different from jazz as it might seem. "That is really what we do in jazz, particularly when playing standards," Tepfer explained. "We take the chord progression of a tune and make variations on it. I'll play the same song on tour night after night, and it will be really different every night. So, if you recorded all of those and put them end to end, it might sound like what Bach did with the Goldbergs, taking one simple piece of material and weaving all these different emotional states into it."
Maverick Concerts is the oldest continuous summer chamber music festival in
America and a winner of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. Built by Maverick Art Colony founder Hervey White, Maverick
Concert Hall first opened its doors to music lovers in 1916. The rustic hall is located at 120 Maverick Road, Woodstock, N.Y. 12498. With acoustics ideally suited to the intimacy of live chamber music performance, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
For additional details, including a schedule of concerts, ticket prices, and seating information, visit
www.maverickconcerts.org or call Maverick's recorded message line at 845-679-8217.
Yamaha is the Official Piano of Maverick Concerts. The C7 grand piano in the Maverick
Concert Hall is a generous loan from Yamaha Artists Services.
Maverick Concerts, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization made possible in part with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; an award from the National Endowment for the Arts; the Maverick Endowment Fund;
Friends of Maverick; the towns of Woodstock and Hurley; local businesses; individual donors; and other public and private foundations. In 2013, Maverick received a special citation as part of the inaugural Ulster County Executive's Arts Award.
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