JAN 23-26 | Experimental Composers
Jan 25, 2025
Joe Henderson Lab
PLEASE NOTE:
This page is an archive of a past production
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Original show description below.
“One of the most adventurous interpreters of contemporary music around” (The Washington Post), GRAMMY and Emmy award-winning pianist Gloria Cheng performs ROOT PROGRESSIONS, an evening of solo commissions by a host of jazz artists and composers representing the vanguard of innovation. The recital includes the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning pianist and composer Anthony Davis, Bay Area jazz icon Jon Jang, bassist Linda May Han Oh, flutist James Newton, pianist Arturo O’Farrill, and composer Gernot Wolfgang.
Based in Los Angeles, Cheng’s immense gifts as a pianist and interpreter of modern music made her a treasured collaborator with 20th century music icon Pierre Boulez and outgoing San Francisco Symphony conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. She won the Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) GRAMMY for her 2008 recording, Piano Music of Salonen, Stucky, and Lutosławski and took home a 2018 Emmy for her work on the PBS SoCal production Montage: Great Film Composers at the Piano. That program, like ROOT PROGRESSIONS, presents performances of commissioned works for solo piano, in this case by renowned film composers including Alexandre Desplat, John Williams, Michael Giacchino, Bruce Broughton, Don Davis, and Randy Newman. In addition to her work as a performer, Cheng is an adjunct professor at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
The classical pianist performs commissions by jazz greats Anthony Davis, Jon Jang, Linda May Han Oh, Arturo O’Farrill, and James Newton.
Pianist Gloria Cheng is one of the most adventurous interpreters of contemporary music around
The Washington Post
Pianist Gloria Cheng is one of the most adventurous interpreters of contemporary music around
The Washington Post
Personnel
Gloria Cheng piano
A pianist who consistently fuses deep emotionality with exacting precision.
San Francisco Classical Voice on Gloria Cheng
Personnel
Gloria Cheng piano
A pianist who consistently fuses deep emotionality with exacting precision.
San Francisco Classical Voice on Gloria Cheng
Watch & Listen
Conversations II: Claude and Monk
Conversations III: Chet and Miles
Conversations II: Claude and Monk
Conversations III: Chet and Miles