Adam Tendler

events

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Notable Performances

BAM, Brooklyn, NY: Devontè Hynes, Selected Classical Works, Spring 2022
Photo: Ellen qbertplaya

Rothko Chapel, Houston, Texas, Spring 2017
Photo: Rothko Chapel/Runaway Productions

Merkin Hall, New York City, New York, Winter 2020
Photo: excerpt from concert film by Point of order Productions

Performing Franz Liszt's Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses with Jenny Lin
Green-Wood Cemetery Catacombs, Angel Share, Brooklyn NY, September 2019
photo: Kevin Condon

Standing ovation after a memorized performance of Philip Glass’ Two Pages
Rothko Chapel, Houston, Texas, Spring 2017
photo: Rothko Chapel/Runaway Productions

Un-preparing a piano and discussing the music of John Cage
Broad Museum, Los Angeles, Spring 2018
photo: Ben gibbs

Performing Takehisa Kosugi's Distance for Piano
Broad Museum, Los Angeles, Spring 2018
photo: Ben gibbs

Introducing the music of John Cage at a morning meditation concert
New Music Gathering, Boston, MA, Spring 2018
photo: new music usa

Performing the music of Julius Eastman
Philadelphia, PA, Spring 2015
photo: ben tran

Performing Henryk Górecki’s Piano Concerto with the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra
Montpelier VT, Spring 2017

Performing Tom Johnson‘s Triple Threat
ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn NY, Winter 2018
photo: cameron mcleod

Performing George Crumb’s Makrokosmos Vol. 1 with composer present
Philadelphia PA, October 2019
photo: Ben Tran

Performing Nathan Hall’s Tame Your Man with Tenth Intervention
New York NY, Spring 2014
photo: steven wine

Performing Franz Liszt's’s Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses with Jenny Lin
Green-Wood Cemetery Catacombs, Brooklyn NY, September 2019
photo: Steven Pisano

ACCLAIM

“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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Say hi at adam@adamtendler.com