JeremyDenk

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  • Piano

About Jeremy

Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists, hailed by the New York Times as “a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs”, and celebrated for performances of vast imagination, beauty, profundity, and wit. A New York Times bestselling author, Jeremy is the recipient 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 2025/26 season, Denk tours widely across North America with performances in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Seattle, Berkeley, and Austin, among others. In recital he continues to explore female composers from the past to the present, as well as the complete Bach Partitas. He also returns to the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra to perform Beethoven 1 at the 92nd Y in New York, and reunites with his long-time collaborator, Joshua Bell, for performances at the Hollywood Bowl and the Ravinia Festival. Further afield, he embarks on a tour of South Korea with violist, Richard O’Neill, and performs at the Adam Chamber Music Festival in New Zealand in multiple concerts, including a performance of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin with tenor Colin Ainsworth.

In the 2024/25 season, Denk continued his musical collaboration with Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis, with performances at the Tsindali Festival and Wigmore Hall, following on from his multi-concert residency at the Wigmore. He also returned to the Lammermuir Festival in multiple performances, and to Klavierfestival Ruhr. Recent highlights also include premiering a new concerto written for him by Anna Clyne, co-commissioned by the Dallas Symphony led by Fabio Luisi, the City of Birmingham Symphony led by Kazuki Yamada, and the New Jersey Symphony led by Markus Stenz. Further highlights include performances of John Adams’ Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? with the Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, and Seattle Symphony.

Denk has performed frequently at Carnegie Hall, and in recent years has worked with such orchestras as Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony, and appeared in such halls as the Köln Philharmonie, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Boulez Saal in Berlin. Denk has also performed extensively across the UK, including with the Bournemouth Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Britten Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Northern Sinfonia.

Denk is also celebrated for his original and insightful writing on music, which Alex Ross praises for its “arresting sensitivity and wit.” 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, The New York Times, and The Guardian. He also 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, New Republic, Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung and on the front page of the New York Times Book Review.

Denk is known for his interpretations of the music of American visionary Charles Ives, and in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, Nonesuch Records released a collection of his Ives recordings in 2024. His album of Mozart piano concertos, released in 2021 on Nonesuch Records, was deemed “urgent and essential” by BBC Radio 3. His recording of the Goldberg Variations for Nonesuch Records reached No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Charts, and his recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata 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, while 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.

Jeremy is based in New York City and San Francisco

Contact

Katharina Sommer

Katharina Sommer

Assistant Manager: Touring & Artists
Adelaide Docx

Adelaide Docx

Associate Director & Manager, Artists

Representation

European management with Askonas Holt

Partner Managers:
Opus 3 Artists (general management)

Season Highlights

Jun 2024
Bravo!Vail Festival
Anna Clyne: Piano concerto ATLAS Dallas Symphony Fabio Luisi (conductor)
Jul 2024
Aspen Festival
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.27 in E minor, Op.90 Joplin Bethena: a concert waltz Gottschalk: The Banjo, Op.15 Simone: Just in Time William Bolcom: The Poltergeist from Three Ghost Rags Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.31 in A-flat major, Op.110 Ives: Piano Sonata No.2, “Concord, Mass., 1840–60”
Aug 2024
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood
Jeremy Denk performs The Battle of Manassas by ‘Blind Tom’ Wiggins and Ives' Concord Sonata
Sep 2024
Tsindali Festival
Gabriel Fauré – Piano Quartet No.2 in G Minor, Op.45 Gabriel Fauré – Piano Quintet No.1 in D Minor, Op.89 With Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis
Sep 2024
Lammermuir Festival
Clara Schumann: Romance No.1 Tania Leon: Ritual Cecile Chaminade: The Flatterer Missy Mazzoli: Heartbreaker Meredith Monk: Paris Amy Beach: 5 Improvisations Ruth Crawford Seeger: Study in Rhythm Louise Farrenc: Melodie in A flat major Chen: Untitles Brahms: Klavierstücke, Op.119 Schumann: Fantasie, Op.17
Nov 2024
Wigmore Hall
Gabriel Fauré Centenary celebrations with Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis
Dec 2024
92nd Street Y
Solo recital celebrating 150th anniversary of Ives
May 2025
Klavierfestival Ruhr
Clara Schumann: Romance No.1 Tania Leon: Ritual Cecile Chaminade: The Flatterer Missy Mazzoli: Heartbreaker Meredith Monk: Paris Amy Beach: 5 Improvisations Ruth Crawford Seeger: Study in Rhythm Louise Farrenc: Melodie in A flat major Chen: Untitles Brahms: Klavierstücke, Op.119 Schumann: Fantasie, Op.17

Photos

Selected Repertoire

Adams

Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?

Bach

Keyboard Concertos, BWV 1052–1065

Bartók

Piano Concerto No.2 in G major, Sz. 95, BB 101   •   Piano Concerto No.3 in E major, Sz. 119, BB 12

Beethoven

Piano Concertos, Nos 1-5

Brahms

Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor, Op.15   •   Piano Concerto No.2 in B♭ major, Op.83

Clyne

ATLAS (written for Jeremy Denk, 2024)

Mendelssohn

Piano Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op.25

Messiaen

Oiseaux Exotiques

Mozart

Piano concerto No.13 in C major, K415   •   Piano Concerto No.19 in F major, K459   •   Piano concerto No.20 in D minor, K466   •   Piano concerto No.21 in C major, K467   •   Piano concerto No.23 in A major, K488   •   Piano concerto No.25 in C major, K503   •   Piano concerto No.27 in B♭ major, K595

Rachmaninov

Piano concerto No.3

Ravel

Piano concerto in G major   •   Piano concerto for the Left Hand

Schumann

Piano concerto in A minor, Op.54

Sample Programmes

  • Programme 1

    Ravel: Sonatine Mozart: Sonata in A Minor Ravel: Gaspard de le Nuit Bach: Toccata in F# Minor Mazzoli: Heartbreaker Ligeti: Devil’s Staircase Beethoven: Op.110

  • Programme 2

    Ligeti: Etudes Bach: Goldberg Variations

News

Press

  • Anna Clyne Piano Concerto, City of Birminghan Symphony conducted by Kazuki Yamada

    Symphony Hall, Birmingham
    May 2024
    • The quicksilver changes of mood and direction are mostly prompted by the extrovert piano writing, projected with real wit by Denk.

  • National Public Radio interview with Anna Clyne

    Mar 2024
    • The real nspiration was Jeremy Denk, who is an incredible musician, a virtuoso and a wonderful collaborator. His repertoire ranges from very early music to very contemporary music, so I was able to explore a lot of different styles through that process and write a piece tailored to him.

      • NPR
      • 27 March 2024
  • Celebrity Series recital

    Boston
    Dec 2023
    • Denk’s artistry rests in how he explores emotional variance by leaning into the extremes. Embracing contradictions, and letting them linger, brings a freshness to his performances. He remains the thinker’s pianist: bold, sensitive, and cleverly adept at maneuvering between poles — even gendered ones.

  • Oxford Piano Festival, Bach Partitas

    Oxford
    Aug 2023
    • His ability to reveal the variety, the impish wit, the creativity in each of these dance-based works made them pass all too quickly. The majesty and grandeur of No 6, which Denk played with utmost control but also the freedom of an improvisation, was a spellbinding climax.

  • Barbican recital, Well-Tempered Klavier Book 1

    Barbican, London
    Dec 2022
    • In May, Jeremy Denk played Book 1 of Bach’s monumental Well-Tempered Clavier with no music, no ceremony, no shy reverence. It was exhilarating, even transformative.

  • Lammermuir Festival

    Scotland
    Sep 2022
    • Denk was absolutely mesmerising in his playing here, some of the finest technical pianism I have heard, infused also with a great sense of humour.

  • The Well-Tempered Klavier Book 1

    Barbican, London
    May 2022
    • The Well-Tempered Clavier is a monument: still tackled by student pianists, but performed live in its entirety only by those with nerves of steel and a penchant for musical marathons. American pianist Jeremy Denk has both – not to mention the fiendish technique and expressive iconoclasm you’d expect from one of today’s classical superstars... familiar phrases were subtly reshaped in Denk’s hands and illuminated afresh.

  • Cleveland Orchestra, John Adams' Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?

    Cleveland
    Feb 2022
    • One of the most thoughtful and reliably interesting artists of our time.

  • The Well-Tempered Klavier Book 1, 92nd Y

    New York
    Dec 2021
    • When the superb pianist Jeremy Denk did the first book [of The Well-Tempered Clavier] from memory at the 92nd Street Y this month, his performance was a reminder of how audaciously inventive and awesomely intricate, how fresh and startling, Bach’s music is.