Andrew Russo: Press

Mr. Russo plays everything here with technical assurance and infectious high spirits. He takes liberties with the oldest item, Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag,” phrasing with a perky bounce while adding cheeky ornamentation and the odd energetic sweep down the keys. Irreverent as this might seem, it is perfectly in keeping with the idiosyncratic tone of this entertaining collection.

The audience of Piano a Riom discovered and uncommon artist yesterday evening. Andrew Russo, a young American, is more than a pianist: a very physical presence that brings an incredible force to all that he touches. Melancholic, vibrant, jubilant, diabolical, he gave character to each work. His recital was powerful without being excessive. A short voyage, but an intense one.

Andrew Russo plays all these short, vivid pieces with a winning combination of drollery and affection. Under his fingers, the older ones sound thoroughly up to date. As a barometer of what is happening now and probably in the future, this collection is a good bet for adventurous listeners.

[The Four Parables] is a superior 'genuine fake' - rigorously assembled from its constituent parts and transformed via Schoenfield's idiosyncratic imagination. Andrew Russo's muscular pianism and the Prague Philharmonia's evocative playing help clinch the illusion.

In this premiere recording, Ehnes and Russo are both elegant and down-home, with the violinist's concentrated tone and pure intonation married to stylish portamentos and idiomatic timbres.

If everyone played contemporary music as well as the members of the trio Real Quiet do, my job would be 10 times more fun and a great deal more interesting. Cellist Felix Fan, percussionist David Cossin, and pianist Andrew Russo were in ideal form on in a short yet compelling concert of Real Quiet’s specialty: the music of our time.
Evocative, sometimes cloudy, and occasionally manic, Kaija Saariaho’s Serenatas is cast in five contrasting short movements; the musicians are free to choose their order. Since the three men are masters of their instruments and knew what the composer wanted them to do, what must have been intense rehearsal efforts bloomed into something truly rich and strange.
Real Quiet was just as good in Huang Ruo’s Real Loud, which manages to be fiery, winsome, tacky, and wacky all at once. Special touches included all three musicians quietly playing water-tuned beer bottles — at least I presume it was water! — duct tape on the piano strings, and a huge range of percussion effects. It seemed to be hard playing, but it paid off handsomely. This was the level of work every festival artist should do.
With Carter turning 100 this year, programming the Cello Sonata was an ideal tribute, especially given how perfectly Fan and Russo played it. The Adagio had the solemn, cool grandeur of slowly swinging planets, and the bracketing Vivace and Allegro got the kind of Olympian performances you remember for years.

If everyone played contemporary music as well as the members of the trio Real Quiet do, my job would be 10 times more fun and a great deal more interesting. Cellist Felix Fan, percussionist David Cossin, and pianist Andrew Russo were in ideal form on in a short yet compelling concert of Real Quiet’s specialty: the music of our time.
Evocative, sometimes cloudy, and occasionally manic, Kaija Saariaho’s Serenatas is cast in five contrasting short movements; the musicians are free to choose their order. Since the three men are masters of their instruments and knew what the composer wanted them to do, what must have been intense rehearsal efforts bloomed into something truly rich and strange.
Real Quiet was just as good in Huang Ruo’s Real Loud, which manages to be fiery, winsome, tacky, and wacky all at once. Special touches included all three musicians quietly playing water-tuned beer bottles — at least I presume it was water! — duct tape on the piano strings, and a huge range of percussion effects. It seemed to be hard playing, but it paid off handsomely. This was the level of work every festival artist should do.
With Carter turning 100 this year, programming the Cello Sonata was an ideal tribute, especially given how perfectly Fan and Russo played it. The Adagio had the solemn, cool grandeur of slowly swinging planets, and the bracketing Vivace and Allegro got the kind of Olympian performances you remember for years.

Pianist Andrew Russo sure knows how to put on a good show! His 2007 release Dirty Little Secret was one of the most entertaining albums of the year, and Mixtape is a worthy successor. Russo asked 10 composers to create arrangements of their favorite pop songs, and Russo contributed two of his own. The resulting recital is always exhilarating, and often astonishing, and it offers huge stylistic variety. Few of the composers provided Russo with a simple piano solo; most either ask him to play a variety of keyboards or have a strong electronic component, in which the piano is only one element. Some, like Evan Ziporyn's straightforward take on the B-52's "Deadbeat Club," are virtuoso pieces in which the original song is easily recognizable. Others, like Marc Mellits' "Three of a Perfect Pair" by King Crimson, are extravagant riffs in which the original is so transformed that it's barely discernible. Some are so thoroughly electronic that they seem like extremely sophisticated covers that wouldn't sound out of place in a dance mix. David Lang's hilarious version of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" requires the pianist to recite the exuberant lyrics in a flat, affectless deadpan over a stuttering, herky-jerky rhythm that uses the song's actual progressions. Among the more eccentric arrangements is Mellits' piece based on Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Jerusalem," which was in turn based on an Edwardian Anglican anthem by Hubert Parry. Mellits turns it into a woozy dreamscape full of giddy organ glissandos with shimmering new age sonics. This isn't repertoire that calls for much subtlety or delicacy, and Russo's playing is appropriately muscular and extroverted. The virtuosic demands of some of the pieces are extravagant, and Russo pulls it off with tremendous style, vitality, and an infectious sense of fun. The sound is immediate and vibrant and the energy is practically palpable.

The 21st century truly began on May 27, 2008 with the recording of Pierced (composed in 2007) by David Lang.

Besides compiling a brilliant program, Russo is a brilliant pianist -- interpretively daring, smart, and technically secure, with the sensibility of a natural-born entertainer. This CD would be of interest to anyone who loves pianistic virtuosity in the service of fresh and engaging new music.

The evening's strangest piece was Paul Schoenfield's 1982-83 "Four Parables" for piano and orchestra, featuring the staggering work of Andrew Russo on piano. There was no doubt that this was Russo's stage in these minutes.

Central New Yorker and Le Moyne College artist-in-residence Andrew Russo knows how to share his "Dirty Little Secret". Russo succeeds in shaking up the classical piano norm. He delivers others' compositions with his own individual stamp.

Violinist Corey Cerovsek’s romantic fire is exhilarating, and he’s a fitting partner for Andrew Russo, a powerful pianist who knows no limits. [Corigliano Violin Sonata]

'stunning collection...performed to the grand manner born...tremendously exciting.' [Corigliano recording]

Benchmark Recording - This Piano Phase sees off the Nonesuch recording by the Double Edge duo quite decisively. This is a much more musically assured performance, while sonically the instrumental sound avoids the latter's rather strident acoustic.

There is no better introduction to the Corigliano’s smaller-scale works than this one. Andrew Russo needs to show no credentials for this music, and the others follow in his tracks.

In 2001, Russo became the first pianist in history to play inside the piano (plucking the strings in a George Crumb piece) at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Of course, he lost. Posterity, however, clearly won since we now have a modern music specialist of uncommon probity and musical gift. I'm especially grateful for Russo's performance of the Corigliano Violin Sonata with Cerovsek, a fine Canadian fiddler. Russo is also fabulous in Corigliano's fiendishly difficult Etude Fantasy and minimalistic Fantasia on an Ostinato.

The crowd pleaser here is the Sonata for Violin and Piano... Together [with Cerovsek], they bring an old-style magnetism to the music. Their timbres are abundant and multi-hued; textures are clean and vibrant. The music of the three fast movements -- think jubilant, rhythmic energy -- is vivacious while the lyricism in the slow one is downright attractive...
Russo offers a penetrating account of the "Etude Fantasy,"...Russo's performance [of Fantasia on an Ostinato] is haunting, intense and luminous.

Russo is an expansive and atmospheric interpreter…he revels in the intricate detail of the figuration. Russo’s relative repose involves no loss of tension, and I found his impressionistic approach mesmeric.

The music lovers who attended the overwhelming Bay Area premiere of pianist Andrew Russo were fortunate indeed. This tall, thin young man made an impression at the Petit Trianon that could not have been dissimilar from the impression made by yound Franz Liszt in the salons of Europe. Russo's technique is Lisztian: there is no other word for it. He plays with passion, terrific strength, and where called for, a lilting grace. A true romantic, Russo is unafraid of the sustaining pedal. he is a true pianistic colorist. There is no doubt the world will soon take his measure!

This is the third recording of Phrygian Gates that I’ve heard. As for the new performance, it is more emphatic, more clearly accented, and even violent, than the others. Russo’s performance is about two minutes shorter, but he makes more out of the second part, drawing it out, so that the last section becomes more like one of those bravura third movements in a piano concerto. The sound on this recording is more focused and crystalline, which perfectly complements the performance. Adams likens China Gates to music for gamelan, and its chiming, rippling notes are like a benign cousin to Phrygian Gates. Once again, Russo’s performance makes more of the individual notes, giving the piece more character.

Russo's performance of John Adams' Phrygian Gates, which has to be remarked upon already for its physical dimensions, was effective and masterly in its rhythmic bravura.

Russo possesses an affinity for modernity...His God-given virtuosic gifts allow him to tear through Stravinsky's Petrouchka at insane tempi and with a radical sense of rhythm. He sewed the harmonies of the work into a complex tapestry of sounds consisting of sharply delineated patterns...The unbelievable vitality of Russo's playing reminds one quite a bit of the legendary Michael Ponti...One hopes that Russo will remain connected to Leipzig through future appearances.

Confirmation, surely, that Andrew Russo is by no means just 'another pianist'.

Mr. Russo's playing was magical, creating long moments of beauty, some of them with sounds that were so soft they were almost imperceptible.

The pianist was Andrew Russo, who was also the organizer of this George Crumb Festival. Judgement tempts me to write that Mr. Crumb's music does not add up to much. Remembering this crowd and its enthusiasms, on the other hand, I am more tempted to keep silent.

The musical event of the evening without a doubt was the extraordinary interpretation of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique transcribed by Liszt. This masterful transcription found an interpreter of genius in Andrew Russo. This was one of the greatest pianistic evenings that we have lived through in recent times.

The true artist of this evening was the American pianist Andrew Russo. Russo is a revelation. A phenomenal pianist in the style of Lazar Berman or Michael Ponti. His interpretation of the Berlioz/Liszt Symphonie Fantastique was a rare moment. This artist with a fiery temperament should become one of the stars of his instrument in the class of Marc-Andrè Hamelin.

Russo is an undisputed master of Crumb's exotic sound world.

Andrew Russo is an intense performer who can put an individual stamp on a variety of music. He has a knack for not letting his individuality obscure his feeling for quite different styles. Music that delicately conjures up a scene got the Russo treatment with Evocacion and El Puerto from Isaac Albeniz's Iberia. Henri Dutilleux's Sonate displayed the pianist's lightness and evenness of touch in between majestic statements. Russo's expressive gifts carried the day.

MOMENT OF THE DAY - 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition: During George Crumb's 'A Little Suite for Christmas', American pianist Andrew Russo reached into the sound box of the piano and carefully plucks the strings - further confusing an audience already a bit rattled by his earlier rendition of a dissonant piece by Aaron Copland. But it's a pivotal moment. Russo will soon close his program by blazing through a brilliant interpretation of Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy that reveals a clear method to the madness of the two works that preceded it. The audience, though weary from riding the stormy waves of Russo's musical journey, leaps to its feet, awash in excitement and newfound understanding. "I felt inspired the whole time," the slender, elegant Russo will say shortly after leaving the stage.

Many performances of Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue' take its jazz elements as a bit of seasoning, spicing up classical fare. Not pianist Andrew Russo, whose ear-bending performance of the American chestnut Friday night with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra revealed it in its modernist glory: some parts piano concerto, other parts Latin rhythm and mor of blues. Underlying it was forceful jazz, swinging hard.

Andrew Russo adores taking musical risks, a sometimes costly trait. Hi willingness to walk a tightrope produces fresh, challenging music. He showed this gift again Saturday night in Utica's ornate Stanley Performing Arts Center by delivering powerful, elegant playing in Prokofieff's First and Fifth Piano Concerti. Russo won the crowd with the Prokofieff Fifth. The music danced with grace and roared with power. As the concerto closed, the crowd instantly rose for a long standing ovation.