Performers

CONRAD TAO, piano

Following two performances with the Poiesis Quartet, pianist Conrad Tao returns to the stage alone for a program that became one of the most talked-about performances of last summer. Its return this season offers a chance to hear it anew.

Described by The New York Times as an artist of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision,” Conrad brings his singular imagination to the music of Rachmaninoff, tracing unexpected connections between the composer’s richly expressive voice and the worlds of jazz, Broadway, and American song.

Rachmaninoff spent much of his later life far from his native Russia, carrying with him a musical language shaped by memory and longing. In Conrad’s hands, that language becomes a point of connection — linking the sweeping lyricism of Rachmaninoff to the songs of Billy Strayhorn, Harold Arlen, and Stephen Sondheim, composers who likewise understood melody as a way of holding onto feeling, identity, and home. Blending works by Rachmaninoff with reimagined standards and moments of improvisation, Conrad creates a program that moves fluidly across musical worlds while remaining anchored by a poetic core. At once intimate and expansive, familiar and newly discovered, this performance invites us to listen across traditions — and to recognize how music, in all its forms, carries something of home within it.

Program

RACHMANINOFF: Prelude in C Major, Op. 32, No. 1

Prelude in A-flat Major, Op. 23, No. 8

Prelude in G Major, Op. 32, No. 5

STRAYHORN: Take the 'A' Train

SONDHEIM: In Buddy's Eyes from Follies

ROBERT SCHUMANN: “Auf Einer burg” from Liederkreis, Op. 39

RACHMANINOFF: Étude-Tableau in A Minor, Op. 39, No. 2

BERLIN: All By Myself

RACHMANINOFF: Improvisation on Variation 15 from Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

ARLEN: Somewhere Over the Rainbow (after Art Tatum)

RACHMANINOFF: Variation 18 from Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

STRAYHORN: Lush Life

RACHMANINOFF: Daisies, Op. 38, No. 3

STRAYHORN: Day Dream

RACHMANINOFF: Étude-Tableau in C Minor, Op. 33, No. 3

Tickets

Age 35+: $45 | 22-34: $20 | 21 & Under: Pay What You Wish.

Honorary Concert Sponsors: Mazie Cox & Brinkley Thorne