Christopher O'Riley Performs at the Kennedy Center in November

Celebrated concert pianist Christopher O’Riley will perform his own arrangements of British band and Grammy winner Radiohead followed by  Johann Sebastian Bach’s iconic Preludes and Fugues, Numbers I though XII, on Monday, Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. While sustaining a widely acclaimed career as a concert pianist, O'Riley gained new prominence while hosting the weekly National Public Radio program From the Top, which won two Emmy awards as he mentored thousands among the the next generation of aspiring classical musicians. The Los Angeles Times wrote that he is “the model of the hip 21st century pianist.” O’Riley leveraged his command of the Indie Rock genre, including Radiohead, Nirvana, Elliott Smith and the Cocteau Twins, bringing together the classical and popular music audiences. Ticket prices for the concert are $40. The Kennedy Center is located at 2700 F Street NW, Washington, DC. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit bit.ly/3t2iKGl or call 202.467.4600.

O’Riley is a musician who thinks deeply about the music, its origins, the composer’s intent, the intricacies of execution, and, most importantly, the performer’s interpretation. These qualities come forth in two distinct areas as he focuses on his Nov. 6 concert: The music of the rock band Radiohead, and the master of all European styles of the early 18th century, J.S. Bach. A performance of the music of Bach by O’Riley is an expansion of time, a period of introspection combined with brilliance of execution and deep reflection on the possibilities offered by the music itself. The Rolling Stone says of O’Riley, “He is melodically vivid yet also noisily orchestral, in both his writing and playing, revoicing Radiohead’s distortions, threats, loveliness and dismay…with unblinking virtuosity.”

Formed in 1985, Radiohead won three Grammys and received 18 Grammy nominations over a 10-year span. In 2019, the group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. O’Riley will perform nine songs by Radiohead: Airbag, Subterranean Homesick Alien, Black Star, Exit Music (for a film), All I Need, Glass Eyes, Let Down, True Love Waits, and Paranoid Android.

Audience members will appreciate O’Riley’s leap from Radiohead to his inquisitive and detailed approach to the music of J.S. Bach.  Radiohead and Bach are both masters of counterpoint, relying on an interweaving of voices. O’Riley’s arrangements of the music are constantly evolving, modified or edited between performances to illuminate a moment or musical idea that suddenly takes prominence in his own imagination. Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke, speaks about “casting spells” with his music, and thus O’Riley works to do just that, immersing himself in the compositions, elevating some thematic material, weaving melodies, accompaniment, and bass lines that peer into the intentions of Radiohead’s music. His methodology with Radiohead’s music is derived directly from his work on the music of Bach, an incessant attention to both details and possibilities for musical interpretation.  

O’Riley likes to point out that Bach rarely wrote expression marks, placing the burden of   interpretation squarely on the performer, who must also face the enormous weight of the music itself. O’Riley will bring this sense of responsibility and possibility to the modern Steinway at the Kennedy Center concert. O’Riley is also engaged with recently developed software that allows him to replicate the sounds of specific historic instruments, including harpsichords, pianofortes, clavichords, virginals, etc., from 1600 to 1800. Since those instruments are still with us, O’Riley exploits the software to experiment with different tunings and combinations of instruments in a way that Bach himself would most certainly have done if he had the same tools.

From the Top featured young artists in interviews and performance, and was the most popular weekly one-hour classical music show on radio. Initially designed as a media platform for all manner of young performers, From the Top soon became exclusively dedicated to classical music. It was in this environment that O'Riley chose to augment the format by inserting his own arrangements of Radiohead songs during program breaks. The Radiohead repertoire supplemented preludes and miniatures by Debussy and Rachmaninoff, subsequently recorded and released on the CD At the Break.

During his work with From the Top, O’Riley began making his arrangements of rock bands he was passionate about. He knew he’d transcended arguments of genre when listeners would write into the program, having heard him, a known Classical pianist, perform the post-announced ‘Karma Police by Radiohead’ asking “Who is this Mr. Head and where can I find more of his beautiful music?” An appearance by O’Riley on the NPR magazine-formatted Performance Today, in which he performed works by Rameau, Shostakovich and his own arrangements of Radiohead and Nick Drake, was immediately linked to over 150 Radiohead-related websites worldwide.

Soon thereafter, True Love Waits: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead was released the recording of his own piano arrangements, was released in 2003. O'Riley's second Radiohead-derived album, Hold Me To This, followed two years later. These releases were followed by a piano tribute to Elliott Smith, Home to Oblivion, again comprised of his own arrangements. O'Riley has introduced the music of Radiohead to a classical audience while introducing classical music to a wider, younger audience. His concerts regularly include standard classical repertoire, Radiohead, Elliott Smith, and Nick Drake interpretations on the same program. O'Riley has also transcribed lesser-known album tracks of indie rock artists, live bootleg recordings of performances, as well as songs never officially released. True Love Waits was the only Classical recording to receive 4 Stars from Rolling Stone, while his Radiohead concert programs received accolades on NPR's Performance Today.

O'Riley began his career as a winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1981, followed by prizes at Leeds, Van Cliburn, Busoni, and Montreal competitions, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. His debut album presented works of Ferruccio Busoni, included the rarely performed Fantasia Contrappuntistica. Subsequent recordings include works of Maurice Ravel, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Jean-Philippe Rameau, John Adams, Igor Stravinsky, and Alexander Scriabin, as well as Rhapsody in Blue with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. 

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