"Garrick Ohlsson joined the orchestra for a solid performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. Ohlsson merged a luxuriant musical imagination with an absolute technical command. His playing was at once big and bold, solemn and poetic."

                 The Washington Post

 

“Cool, clean, poetic, the pianist’s pianist turns it on.”

                 The Independent

  
SCHUBERT
Symphony No. 4 “Tragic” 
BERG
Lyric Suite (arr. for chamber orchestra) 
BEETHOVEN
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op.58 

Though its title suggests a plunge into despair, Schubert’s “Tragic” symphony provides a playful opening for this program, even in its minor key. Berg’s Lyric Suite, originally scored for string quartet and expanded for full string orchestra, will showcase Orpheus’ lush string sound. Berg used this twelve-tone piece as a love letter to his mistress by combining his initials with hers in musical notation into a motif weaved throughout the work. Garrick Ohlsson, a favorite collaborator of Orpheus whose “playing [is] at once big and bold, solemn and poetic” (Washington Post), returns for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major. The interaction between the piano and the unison strings in the second movement of this masterwork is reminiscent of the Greek Orpheus taming the furies, a vivid depiction that will surely be on full display.

 

Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. Although he has long been regarded as one of the world's leading exponents of the music of Frédéric Chopin, Mr. Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire, which ranges over the entire piano literature. A student of the late Claudio Arrau, Mr. Ohlsson has come to be noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire. His concerto repertoire alone is unusually wide and eclectic - ranging from Haydn and Mozart to works of the 21st century - and to date he has at his command some 80 concertos.

Mr. Ohlsson is an avid chamber musician and has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, Takács and Tokyo string quartets, among other ensembles. Together with violinist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Michael Grebanier, he is a founding member of the San Francisco-based FOG Trio. A prolific recording artist, Mr. Ohlsson can be heard on the Arabesque, RCA Victor Red Seal, Angel, Bridge, BMG, Delos, Hänssler, Nonesuch, Telarc, and Virgin Classics labels.

A native of White Plains, N.Y., Mr. Ohlsson began his piano studies at the age of 8. He attended the Westchester Conservatory of Music and at 13 entered The Juilliard School in New York City. His musical development has been influenced in completely different ways by a succession of distinguished teachers, most notably Claudio Arrau, Olga Barabini, Tom Lishman, Sascha Gorodnitzki, Rosina Lhévinne and Irma Wolpe. Although he won First Prizes at the 1966 Busoni Competition in Italy and 1968 Montréal Piano Competition, it was his 1970 triumph at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where he won the Gold Medal, that brought him worldwide recognition as one of the finest pianists of his generation. Since then he has made nearly a dozen tours of Poland, where he retains immense personal popularity. Mr. Ohlsson was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in 1994 and received the 1998 University Musical Society Distinguished Artist Award in Ann Arbor, Mich. In February 2008, he won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra) for his Beethoven Sonatas, Vol. 3 (Bridge Records, Inc.). He makes his home in San Francisco.
 

 

In 1970, Garrick Ohlsson dazzled the world by becoming the first and so far only American to win the Chopin Piano Competition. With a vast repertoire at his command, Ohlsson plays with the great orchestras of the world. In this SundayArts profile, Ohlsson speaks about Beethoven, Mozart, and where the two composers meet.