Saturday, January 6, 2024 at 7:30 PM
Peoples’ Symphony Concerts
Washington Irving High School
40 Irving Place (one block East of Union Square, between 16th & 17th Sts.)
New York, NY 10003
Tickets

Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 7:30 PM
Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
300 S Broad St
Philadelphia, PA 19102
Tickets

Program:
J.S. Bach, Six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard, BWV 1014-1019

After a phenomenal U.S. debut in 2022 at the 92^nd Street Y, Polish violin sensation and 2018 Bach International Violin Competition winner Maria Włoszczowska returns to the U.S.for two concerts with the world-renowned pianist and MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient Jeremy Denk. Denk, who regularly collaborates with several of today’s premier violinists, believes Włoszczowska to be one of the instrument’s most exciting young artists.

On January 6, 2023 they will perform Bach’s intimate and wondrous Six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard in New York City’s oldest and most treasured concert series – Peoples’ Symphony Concerts, which a New York Times feature article  proclaimed: offers “Carnegie Hall-quality artists for less than a Manhattan movie ticket or even a large popcorn.” On January 9, 2023 they will perform at the prestigious Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center.

For New Yorkers who love music but can’t afford regular ticket prices, Peoples’ Symphony Concerts has been bringing them, in the words of a recent New York Times feature.

“Carnegie Hall-quality artists for less than the cost of a Manhattan movie ticket or even a large popcorn,’ since 1900.  Twelve of the series eighteen annual concerts have been presented on Saturday evenings, since 1914, in the Auditorium of Washington Irving Campus (16th Street & Irving Place – one block East of Union Square) and that’s where the 2024 performances will begin on Saturday, January 6th at 7:30 PM when pianist Jeremy Denk, a series favorite, and Polish violinist Maria Wloszczowska will offer Bach’s Six Violin Sonatas, BWV 1014-1019.  Denk, who met the young violinist at a festival in Scotland, felt that she had a special musicality and he introduced her to New York audiences last season at the 92nd Street Y in an enthusiastically-received performance of the Bach Sonatas.  Their concert for Peoples’ Symphony Concerts might be viewed as the paperback edition of their Bach Sonatas with tickets only $ 20.  A ticket for the series upon which they will appear is $ 56 and also offers the acclaimed string quartet Brooklyn Rider on April 6th in a program of Haydn, Schumann and works written for them by Clarice Assad, Tyshawn Sorey, Giovanni Sollima and Gabriel Kahane, and the first of a four-concert Schubert Piano Sonata Cycle in 2024 with Britain’s esteemed Paul Lewis on Saturday, April 27th.  Tickets and further information may be obtained at www.pscny.org.

Maria Włoszczowska’s US tour is supported by the Polish Cultural Institute New York.

Polish violinist Maria Włoszczowska is recognized for her versatile musicianship, performing as solist, director/concertmaster, and chamber musician.

Maria began the 2022-23 season with her solo debut at the BBC Proms performing Kaija Saariaho’s Vers toi qui es si loin with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Dinis Sousa. As Leader of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, she also directs a number of programs; one of the season’s highlights included directing and performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Further afield, Maria makes her Hong Kong debut at the Hong Kong Musicus Festival and joins the violin faculty at Yellow Barn, Vermont.

Last season, Maria gave her New York recital debut at 92NY with Jeremy Denk performing all six Bach Sonatas for violin and keyboard and they return together this season to the Lammermuir Festival.

She appears regularly at the Wigmore Hall and at international festivals such as Musikdorf Ernen in Switzerland, Lammermuir Festival and IMS Prussia Cove as well as a residency at Yellow Barn.  Distinguished artists such as Jeremy Denk, Bengt Forsberg and Dinis Sousa have joined her in recital and other chamber music partners have included Thomas Adès, Alasdair Beatson, Philippe Graffin, Benjamin Grosvenor, Steven Isserlis, Steven Osborne, Hyeyoon Park, Timothy Ridout and the Doric String Quartet.  This season also sees the launch of the Valo Quartet, which she leads; they make their debut appearance in Brussels under the auspices of the Festival Resonances.

Recent seasons have seen projects as a guest leader of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and solo appearances with UK and international ensembles, including symphonic and chamber orchestras in her home country of Poland.   This season, Maria returns to Leipzig to appear as soloist with Reinhard Goebel and the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum at the Gewandhaus.

Recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Emily Anderson Prize, the Hattori Foundation Senior Award and Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage Prize, she based herself in the UK after completing her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Hungarian violinist and conductor András Keller. In 2018 she won both First Prize and Audience Prize at the XXI Leipzig International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition.

Maria Włoszczowska plays on a violin by Francesco Stradivari.

Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists, proclaimed by the New York Times ‘a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs’. Denk is also a New York Times bestselling author, winner of both the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In the 2022-23 season, Denk will continue his multi-season exploration of Book 1 of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, and will also perform with orchestras and in recitals across UK, Europe, and the United States, including a return to Carnegie Hall play-directing Bach concerti with Orchestra St. Luke’s, and multi-concert residency at the Lammermuir Festival in Scotland.   An avid chamber musician, Denk will also embark on a US tour with the renowned Takács Quartet.

His New York Times Bestselling memoir Every Good Boy Does Fine was published to universal acclaim by Random House in 2022, with features on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR’s Fresh Air, New York Times Review of Books, and more, with The Guardian heralding it as “an elegant, frank and well-structured memoir that entirely resists cliche. A rare feat… it makes the reader care about Denk beyond his talent for playing the piano.”

Denk’s latest album of Mozart piano concertos was released in 2021 on Nonesuch Records. The album, deemed “urgent and essential” by BBC Radio 3, was featured as Album of the Week’ on Classic FM, and ‘Record of the Week’ on BBC Radio’s Record Review.

Denk has performed multiple times at Carnegie Hall and in recent years has worked with such orchestras as Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Cleveland Orchestra. Further afield, he has performed multiple times at the BBC Proms and Klavierfestival Ruhr, and appeared in such halls as the Köln Philharmonie, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Boulez Saal in Berlin. He has also performed extensively across the UK, including recently with the London Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and play-directing the Britten Sinfonia. Last season’s highlights include his performance of the Well-Tempered Klavier Book 1 at the Barbican in London, and performances of John Adams’ “Must the Devil Have All The Great Tunes?” with the Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, and Seattle Symphony, as well as a return to the San Francisco Symphony to perform Messiaen under Esa Pekka Salonen.

Denk is also known for his original and insightful writing on music, which Alex Ross praises for its “arresting sensitivity and wit.” He wrote the libretto for a comic opera presented by Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, and the Aspen Festival, and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New Republic, The Guardian, and on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. His book Every Good Boy Does Fine was published in 2022 by Random House in the US and Pan Macmillan in the UK.

Denk’s recording of the Goldberg Variations for Nonesuch Records reached No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Charts. His recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111 paired with Ligeti’s Études was named one of the best discs of the year by the New Yorker, NPR, and the Washington Post, and his account of the Beethoven sonata was selected by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library as the best available version recorded on modern piano. Denk has a long-standing attachment to the music of American visionary Charles Ives, and his recording of Ives’s two piano sonatas also featured in many “best of the year” lists. His recording c.1300-c.2000 was released in 2018 with music ranging from Guillaume de Machaut, Gilles Binchois and Carlo Gesualdo, to Stockhausen, Ligeti and Glass. His latest album of Mozart piano concertos, performed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, was released in 2021 on Nonesuch Records.

Jeremy Denk is a graduate of Oberlin College, Indiana University, and the Juilliard School. He lives in New York City.