Hugely excited that my new album on ECM Records with pianist Blair McMillen was released in May, with a release concert at Le Poisson Rouge. We play sonatas by Bartók and Schnittke and the Partita by Lutoslawski.
Buy it here

In deciding to record these works together, I had a few personal motivations. Recently I learned that the immediate ancestors of my Viennese grandfather had in fact come from Slovakia. I have always been drawn to the colorations and characteristics of this music: the dark-hued tones and harmonies, the mordant wit, the detailed shaping of folk ornamentation. Discovering my ancestry just made me feel personally even closer to these pieces. The music of Bartók, Schnittke and Lutoslawski was also significant to my early musical development, particularly my affinity for contemporary music. Bartók was the first 20th-century composer whose music I was strongly attracted to. When I was 11, his First Rhapsody was my favorite piece and I went on to learn the rest of his pieces for violin – sonatas, concertos, solo sonata, and chamber music. I also encountered Lutoslawski’s music at 11 years old, as a student at the Aspen Festival. Assigned to play in his Symphony No. 3, with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting and the composer present, I was initially puzzled by the notation, with its odd-looking squiggles and arrows, but found I loved the sound of the piece. I still remember it as one of my first thrilling experiences with recent music. As for Schnittke, I remember my excitement performing his “Quasi una sonata” at the Juilliard School when I was a student first learning about his work.