“indisputable gifts [and] an extravagantly thorough and effortless technique...von Oeyen seems incapable of misarticulating a musical sentence."
– Los Angeles Times
Andrew von Oeyen
Update: January/February Tour Dates
Andrew is replacing pianist Louis Lortie in concerts with the San Diego Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic and Oklahoma City Philharmonic this month while Lortie recovers from a hiking accident. "Louis is one of the pianists I most respect today as well as a good friend. He suffered a broken arm but is doing well --my best wishes are with him for a speedy recovery."
VON OEYEN RECEIVES RAVE REVIEWS FOR LAST-MINUTE SUBSTITUTIONS
Click here for complete San Diego review
Click here for complete Oklahoma City review
New Orchestras, Recordings, Collaborations
2012 sees several new projects for Andrew. In addition to appearances with the Prague Philharmonia, Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, Detroit Symphony, Pacific Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic, a tour with the Slovenian Philharmonic and recitals in the U.S., Austria, France, Italy, Spain and Japan, he will tour with Sarah Chang and release new solo album. Further details will soon be posted. PODCAST - Interview with Andrew von Oeyen
Chang, von Oeyen a powerful pairing
The Boston Globe
By Jeffrey Gantz
October 18, 2011
It’s not unusual for star instrumentalists to hype the “equal relationship’’ they have with their recital partners or fellow performers. But in their Celebrity Series of Boston recital program Sunday afternoon at Symphony Hall, violinist Sarah Chang and pianist Andrew von Oeyen were equals in every way. They talked to each other, they listened to each other, they gave each other space.
Chang, of course, is the star, a child prodigy who now, at 30, is one of the world’s premier violinists. Yet the pieces she and von Oeyen chose - the Scherzo Johannes Brahms wrote for the collaborative “F-A-E’’ Sonata, his Violin Sonata No. 3, Christopher Theofanidis’s “Fantasy,’’ and Cesar Franck’s Violin Sonata in A - showcased the piano as much as the violin.
Gangly and tousle-haired and hunching over his instrument, von Oeyen looked like the reincarnation of Van Cliburn, and when Chang bent toward him, as she did frequently, you could see him listening to her out of the corner of his ear. She would lean back, or kick a foot, or dance from side to side; she even hopped. All that was reflected in the tone of her Guarneri: warm, pungent, by turns romantically intense and meditatively mellow, never thin or glossy.
There was actually too much piano in the Scherzo, but that was Brahms’s fault (he was only 20 when he wrote the piece) and not von Oeyen’s. The later (1888), full-throated Violin Sonata No. 3 balanced the violin’s smoldering Gypsy yearning against the piano’s galloping runs and heavy chording. The Franck started in a more delicate vein of wistful recollection that erupted into stormy rapture and perhaps reproach before a nocturne-like truce was called and a playful, “top that’’ finale ensued. In between, American composer Theofanidis’s “Fantasy’’ was a harmless, enjoyable bit of movie-music comfort food.
There were encores: Edward Elgar’s “Salut d’Amour,’’ a violin-and-piano setting of Carlos Gardel’s tango “Por una Cabeza,’’ and the “Air on the G String’’ from J.S. Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite. Chang and von Oeyen were having such a lively conversation, it was a shame they had to stop.
Touring Update: September 30, October 1 & 2
Andrew accepted a late engagement to perform Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major with the North Carolina Symphony this weekend, replacing the scheduled artist. He will also perform solo piano works of Debussy on the program. See CONCERTS for further details.
Andrew von Oeyen makes Allmusic's Best Classical Albums of 2011 List!
*Andrew von Oeyen makes Allmusic's Best Classical Albums of 2011 List*
NEW RELEASE - DELOS RECORDS
In the bicentennial year of Liszt's birth, Andrew's Liszt recording will be released worldwide by Delos on February 1, 2011. The recital disk features major solo works, such as the Sonata in B Minor and Vallée d'Obermann. The album is now available on iTunes, Amazon and eMusic as well as in stores worldwide
Fanfare Magazine review
by Raymond Tuttle
LISZT Sonata in b. Waldesrauschen. Vallée d’Obermann. Liebestraum No. 3. VERDI-LISZT Concert Paraphrase on Rigoletto. WAGNER-LISZT Lohengrin: Elsa’s Bridal Procession. Tristan und Isolde: Isoldes Liebestod • Andrew von Oeyen (pn) • DELOS DE 3412 (72:45)
Japan Recital Tour: November 2010
Andrew just returned from an extensive recital tour of Japan where he appeared in the major concert halls of Tokyo, Sapporo, Hiroshima, Nagoya and Akita. His programs included works of Chopin, Liszt, Ravel as well as one of Andrew's own compositions, "The Mill." See CONCERTS for further information.
Summer Music Festivals: Saratoga and Aspen
Andrew made his debut at the Saratoga Music Festival in an all-French program of solo piano music of Ravel and chamber music by Fauré and Franck. Click here to read review
In August he performed in recital at the Aspen Music Festival. See PRESS for review.
Berlin Symphony Orchestra Tour
Andrew just completed a 12-concert tour in Japan with the Berliner Symphoniker which included concerts in Tokyo's Suntory Hall, Sapporo's Kitara Concert Hall and Osaka's Symphony Hall. He performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.
Last Minute Replacement
On less than 24 hours notice, Andrew replaced pianist Horacio Gutierrez at the Florida Bach Festival Society on March 28. His program featured several works from his recent recording, including pieces by Berg, Beethoven, and Liszt.
Duo Tour
Andrew von Oeyen and Sarah Chang just completed a 30-city world tour which culminated in a recording for EMI Classics.
Music Festivals
From crab cakes to vineyards to high-altitude summits, Andrew just completed this season's traversal of summer music festivals. Most recently, at the Aspen Music Festival, Andrew performed solo and chamber works of Brahms, Liszt, Mendelssohn and Stravinsky with esteemed colleagues and friends Sarah Chang, Robert McDuffie, Bing Wang and Andrew Shulman.
Click here for Festival del Sole review
Click here for Spoleto Festival USA review
Von Oeyen stars in "A Capitol Fourth" - America's Independence Day Celebration in Washington, D.C.
Click here to watch performance
Andrew von Oeyen appeared alongside Barry Manilow, Aretha Franklin, Natasha Bedingfield, Big Bird, Elmo, and Oscar the Grouch on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol on July 4th, 2009, in America's biggest Independence Day party, broadcast live to millions worldwide. He performed Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with Michael Feinstein and the National Symphony Orchestra, led by Erich Kunzel. The multi-award winning A CAPITOL FOURTH, featuring the most spectacular fireworks display anywhere in the nation, was broadcast live in high definition and commercial free on PBS Saturday, July 4, 2009.
Interview with Andrew
Ravinia Festival Orchestra and Cincinnati Symphony Debuts
Andrew made two highly successful debuts with the Ravinia Festival Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony this summer. He performed the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 at the Ravinia Festival and Riverbend Festival.
Detroit Symphony & Vladimir Ashkenazy
With less than 12 hours notice, Andrew flew to Detroit to perform Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy. Read the rave review from The Detroit News:
DSO's SURPRISE PIANIST IS A GENUINE RACH STAR
Lawrence B. Johnson
You never know who -- or what -- is waiting in the wings. When pianist Lukas Vondracek canceled this weekend's appearances with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the young American Andrew von Oeyen agreed to sit in for him as soloist in the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Before you read another line, go to the phone or Internet and grab a ticket for one of von Oeyen's remaining performances. Friday morning, he delivered one of the most commanding accounts of Rach 2 that I can recall hearing live -- majestic and singing, lucid and dramatic, and technically effortless.
Add to that the supple, yet clearly structured conducting by Ashkenazy, a complete musician who long ago won fame as a virtuoso pianist, and you have a well nigh perfect turn through a formidable concerto.
Rachmaninoff, who was a great pianist, wrote his concertos to play himself. Von Oeyen reminds one of the composer. A lanky figure with large hands and an air of almost casual authority, von Oeyen managed the widest leaps and most complex passages as if he were playing simple scales. But more than that, he fit every phrase into a thoughtful interpretive scheme, seamlessly moving from intensity to lyrical expansiveness to lacy filigrees of purely decorative delight.
Ashkenazy moved with him, and drew from the DSO a performance of true symphonic weight and splendor.