A "daring pianist" praised for his "adventurousness and muscular skill" (The New York Times), 2026 Grammy-nominated artist Adam Tendler has been called "the hottest pianist on the American contemporary classical scene" (Minneapolis Star Tribune), “relentlessly adventurous” (Washington Post), a "remarkable and insightful musician" (LA Times), an "intrepid... maverick pianist" (The New Yorker), and "one of contemporary classical music's most intentional and daring pianists" (Seven Days). "If you're a cutting-edge composer these days," said CBS Sunday Morning's Lee Cowan, "you want Adam to perform your pieces." A pioneer of DIY culture in classical music, at age 23 Tendler performed solo recitals in all fifty states as part of a grassroots tour called America 88x50, and has since become one of classical music's most recognized and celebrated artists, featured on CBS Sunday Morning, receiving Lincoln Center's Emerging Artist Award, the Yvar Mikhashoff Prize, and appearing as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, LA Phil, Sydney Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, NJ Symphony, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, as well as on the main-stages of Carnegie Hall, the Barbican Centre, Sydney Opera House, BAM, David Geffen Hall. Walt Disney Concert Hall, Milan Fashion Week, and other leading series and stages worldwide. His Inheritances album, 16 new pieces commissioned using the inheritance left after his father's unexpected death, has been nominated for a 2026 GRAMMY® as Best Classical Instrumental Solo, was a New York Times Critic Pick, which wrote, "You will be moved, profoundly and intensely," and described the project as "a display of contemporary compositional force...a true show...emotionally involving...with a sense of true dramatic stakes." The Washington Post added, "the biggest emotional gut punch I got from a concert all year." Tendler is featured on Wild Up's Grammy-nominated third volume of Julius Eastman's music, and has also released albums of music by Franz Liszt, Robert Palmer, and of his own original work. Tendler’s 2024 immersive installation, Exit Strategy, as Green-wood Cemetery’s artist in residence, received national attention and engaged hundreds of contributing community members. He is the author of two books, a Yamaha Artist, and serves on the piano faculty at NYU.
ACCLAIM
"currently the hottest pianist on the American contemporary classical scene"
— The Minneapolis Star Tribune
“a probing and persuasive musician... intrepid...outstanding...a maverick pianist”
— The New Yorker
“a relentlessly adventurous pianist...”
— The Washington Post
[Tendler’s performance of Philip Glass’s Two Pages] was a piece of hardcore minimalism that kept getting more hypnotic the longer it lasted, and at a certain point everyone was looking at each other with disbelieving looks. ‘He actually memorized the whole thing?’ ... a style that can best be described as simultaneously discerning and ecstatic.”
— Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center
“John Cage’s undulant, exotic “Mysterious Adventure” for prepared piano, [was] played captivatingly by Adam Tendler. The wondrously subdued sounds silenced many, who listened closely even as street bustle and chirping birds blended in.”
—Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
“...keys were struck from afar by long objects such as a yardstick, umbrella, fishing rod, rake, squeegee and a broom just like the kind Johns liked to paint... Somehow, the sense that hitting a piano with a broom and your head against the wall is a proper prelude to playing the keys with utmost sensitivity.”
—Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
“Pianist Adam Tendler doesn't just play the instrument — he manipulates it...”
—Sam Byrd, Houston Press
“Tendler has managed to get behind and underneath the notes, living inside the music and making poetic sense of it all...if they gave medals for musical bravery, dexterity and perseverance, Adam Tendler would earn them all.”
— The Baltimore Sun
“Tendler [displayed] his virtuosity, delivering this spicy music with clarity, speed and flair.”
—Jim Lowe, The Times Argus
“a modern-music evangelist”
—Time Out New York
“For real nightmarish intensity, though, the highlight of [Soundbox] was Kagel’s MM51, a multimedia extravaganza for piano, metronome and film. The pianist was Adam Tendler, playing Kagel’s dense, alluring keyboard harmonies with a showman’s knack for rhythmic edginess. Meanwhile, a constellation of live video feeds — fractured, flipped and bathed in the shadowy black and white of an Expressionist film — underscored the ominous tick-tock of the metronome, which was occasionally disrupted by a gloved and disembodied hand.”
—Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle
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