Christopher O'Riley

Tickets and Information

Visit the Christopher O'Riley website:
http://www.scottsdaleperformingarts.org/event.php?id=706

The model for the hip 21st century pianist, Christopher O'Riley is a talk show host for aspiring classical musicians on NPR (From the Top) and a master of the art of reinterpreting the music of alternative rock artists for classical piano. His latest CD, Out of My Hands, includes transcriptions of songs by Tears for Fears, Tori Amos and Radiohead. A formidable pianist in his own right, O'Riley won awards at the Leeds, Van Cliburn and Busoni competitions, as well as an Avery Fisher Career Grant. The quality of both his playing and his arrangements is what distinguishes him from other crossover artists; his CD True Love Waits received the only four-star review ever given by Rolling Stone to a classical pianist. Constantly in pursuit of "inhabiting the music," O'Riley's obsessive love of musical exploration is never more evident than in live performance. He is the "modern pianistic troubadour, transmogrifying musically simple rock songs into cascading tapestries of keyboard figurations" (The Washington Post).