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Christopher Taylor


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Anyone here familiar with Christopher Taylor?

I heard him at Miller Theater several years ago perfom the complete Ligeti etudes. One of the best concerts I've ever heard.

I missed his Messiaen Vingt Regards at Caramoor 2 years ago but February 20th he is perfoming the Goldberg Variations on harpsichord.

btw Keith Jarrett told me he'd like to rerecord the Goldberg, this time on piano. Doesn't think the harpsichord brings out the music as well.

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No, not familiar.

I used to attend Miller Theater concerts all the time, but moved away from NYC area in 2001. Would definitely have gone to the Ligeti concert if I was around.

BTW, did you see Fredrik Ullen play the Ligeti Etudes in NYC (Cooper Union) in 2001? I heard very good things (not just media reviews, but from attendees) about that concert, which I inexcusably missed...

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Tayor is a maverick. He graduated with honors from Harvard with a degree in Math. He won the bronze medalist at the Van Cliburn competition in 1993 when he was in his early 20s. He played the Goldberg Variations at the competion (highly unusual repertory choice) and it's clear that the reason he didn't win that year was because he didn't fit the standard competition pianist mold. Since then he's built a teaching and performing career on his own model -- he's not at a big conversatory but at the University of Wisconsin (nothing against UW; I'm just saying), he's written scholarly articles on philosophy and instead of doing standard rep with big orchestras he focuses on recitals and modern and contemporary repertoire, from Ligeti and Messiaen to Bolcom (though he still plays Liszt, Beethoven, etc.)

Generally, I think he's brilliant, though I found a program of standard repertoire he played in metro Detroit earlier this fall a mixed bag interpretively. Here's the review. There were two concerts, one with a quartet that tackled Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" and the second a solo recital. Also, though it's not mentioned in the review because of space, it's almost surely the case that the more conventional program he played was influenced by the presenter, which is notoriously backward when it comes to contemporary music -- I've bashed them in print many times over this.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...ENT04/810060366

Edited by Mark Stryker
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