“Von Oeyen has a flair for this lesser Rachmaninoff opus (Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Grant Park Orchestra). Without wallowing in the concerto's romantic schmaltz, he mustered a winning combination of powerful fingers, rhapsodic freedom and emotional involvement that marked him as a pianist to watch.”
– John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune
With less than 12 hours notice, Andrew flew to Detroit to replace the scheduled soloist in 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
May 23, 2008
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.
Andrew will make his debuts with the Chicago Symphony and the Cincinnati Symphony this summer. He will perform the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Cincinnati Symphony on July 20 at the Riverbend Music Center and with the Chicago Symphony on September 1 at the Ravinia Festival.
Andrew just returned from a highly successful recital tour in Japan. His program of works by Chopin, Liszt, Bartok and Ligeti was performed in the major concert halls of Tokyo, Sapporo, Musashino, Yokohama, Kumamoto and Fukuoka to capacity audiences. Though the performance schedule was demanding, it was a highly satisfying experience, both musically and culturally. Andrew says, "Japan is a wonderful country to play in because of its pianos, concert halls, its food and genuine hospitality of its people. I could not have wished for better audiences and I hope to return soon. I have never eaten so well in my life!"
With just two days notice, Andrew von Oeyen flew to Birmingham to play the Liszt First Piano Concerto with the Alabama Symphony September 28, 29 and 30. The concerts were conducted by Justin Brown (see press page for review).
Andrew von Oeyen substituted for pianist Horacio Gutierrez at the Grand Teton Music Festival on August 24 and 25, performing Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. Carlos Kalmar led the Festival Orchestra.
Andrew von Oeyen recently made a highly successful, sold-out recital debut at the Kennedy Center. Read what Tim Page had to say about it in the Washington Post:
Andrew von Oeyen, Keenly Attuned to Liszt's Grand Design
By Tim Page
May 7, 2007
The Washington Performing Arts Society's celebrated Hayes Piano Series has been curiously hit-or-miss this season, but it concluded triumphantly Saturday afternoon with a smart, varied and altogether engrossing recital by Andrew von Oeyen at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that von Oeyen played the finest all-around performance of Franz Liszt's Sonata in B Minor that I have heard in many years. The late critic Claudia Cassidy once observed that Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 is "cheap unless it is magnificent." Likewise, this sonata -- a full half-hour of it, give or take a couple of minutes -- can come over as gaseous and overwrought, a succession of murky phantasms constructed on top of pretty flimsy musical material.
But von Oeyen's performance was different. He played with energy and clarity, wasting no time mooning over passing lovelinesses, always keeping his focus on the grand design. The result was like clearing away accumulated grime on a 19th-century canvas: For once, the sonata seemed both organic and sensible, and I was even sorry to hear it come to an end. (That is a rarity with this score, which sometimes calls to mind Samuel Johnson's wonderful comment about "Paradise Lost": "No one ever wished it longer.")
Von Oeyen has studied with a wide variety of teachers, including Alfred Brendel, Leon Fleisher, Herbert Stessin and Jerome Lowenthal. Perhaps this is one reason he seems to be a different pianist in every piece he plays -- and I do not mean that as a cut. Rather, he adapts his talents to the music at hand: His playing was delightfully spare, lithe and airborne in Haydn's Sonata in E-flat (Hob. XVI: 49), and then took on a new and hitherto unsuspected gravity and majesty in Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat (Op. 55, No. 2).
And then he exploded into the opening movement, "With Drums and Pipes," of Bartok's "Out of Doors Suite" -- rude, noisy and exhilarating music that almost sounds as though the piano is being played with the "drums and pipes" enumerated in its title. But the real joy came with the wonderfully weird fourth movement, a nocturne as unlike Chopin as one could imagine, complete with spot-on pianistic imitations of birds, bugs and frogs, and a loamy and magical phosphorescent glow.
Andrew von Oeyen recently gave three concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra. His debut performances at the Kimmel Center were met with standing ovations, leading to an immediate reengagement with the prestigious ensemble.
Daily Breeze
April 30, 2007
On Saturday, von Oeyen touched the soul of the collective audience with Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466...he showed off his brilliant technical accomplishments in a variety of moods, from the simple, plaintive opening theme to the turbulent finale. The stunning chromatic passages flowed like a purling stream, and the soloist played the lovely melodic Romanze movement, so familiar to many serious piano students, with affectionate elegance. Considered by scholars to be one of the most honored works in the concerto repertoire, the piano concerto is a precursor to Romanticism, but von Oeyen stayed clear of sentimentality.
The Advocate
April 29, 2007
To complete the first half of music, Andrew von Oeyen joined the orchestra as soloist in the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. After launching the work with those famous tolling piano chords, von Oeyen quickly revealed a highly concentrated and focused approach, thoughtfully choosing lines to project above the thick, rich and dark orchestral accompaniment. This clarity also permeated the virtuoso passagework, played with a lovely rhythmic feel, very different from the gestural way that these passages are sometimes interpreted. He opened the third movement, Allegro Scherzando, like a mad scientist in front of a collection of smoking beakers: And again, his figuration was white-hot.
Tuscaloosa News
April 3, 2007
Andrew von Oeyen...a virtuoso pianist full of brilliant energy and style performed George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with great verve and brilliance. The audience was truly moved by the performance, and gave von Oeyen a well-earned standing ovation.
Albuquerque Journal
March 3, 2007
For Tchaikowsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, guest soloist Andrew von Oeyen took the stage. Tall and lanky, he recalls a young Van Cliburn (who made this work virtually his own in past decades). Von Oeyen, who made his debut at age 17 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen, is a brilliant young pianist with all the tools at his command. In this quirky writing which seems to revel in sudden juxtapositions of contrasting dynamics, he tackled both with masterful command. In the Andante semplice he showed a warm, even sensuous playing, while the scherzo-like prestissimo of the same movement was pure quicksilver--effervescent wisps of sound from the keys. The winds of the orchestra seemed to revel in the colors that Tchaikowsky loved to employ. But it was the final movement, compositionally the most integral, which brought the players to their best. Maestro Guillermo Figueroa led the musicians with an obvious passion, as von Oeyen stunned everyone with an emotional power not soon forgotten.
This winter marks a special debut for Andrew von Oeyen: the launching of his new website! Andrew is very excited to have an official presence on the internet and is much looking forward to hearing from you.
At the other keyboard, he makes his debut in January with the Utah Symphony and Keith Lockhart, playing the Samuel Barber Piano Concerto for the first time.
In February, he returns to Europe for his debut with the Slovak Philharmonic in Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, a work he has played to great acclaim across the US.
Andrew will make his debut with the New Mexico Symphony as well as his subscription debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center in March.
While performing in Salt Lake City, Andrew gave a masterclass at the University of Utah on January 26.