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The German-born pianist, Andreas Klein, studied and won many awards in Germany. Then he was invited to New York where he later graduated from Juilliard School. He studied with the legendary Claudio Arrau, Nikita Magaloff, and John Perry, where he received his DMA degree at Rice University. Copies of his Dissertation on the Chopin Etudes are in the libraries of the Chopin Society in Vienna and Leipzig.
Andreas Klein is widely admired as a pianist of rare sensitivity and musicality. The Washington Post has praised his “articulate and flowing pianism” while the New York Times called him “a pianist who makes silences sound like music.” About a recent Glenn Gould tribute (with the Minguet String Quartet), the Calgary Herald reported, “(Klein brings) to his performance a mature understanding…as well as a brilliant execution”, while Classical Voice of North Carolina (CVNC) was even more blunt: “Andreas Klein is a stupendous pianist…a stunning performance by any standard, and it brought the audience to its feet in a rousing ovation.”
Andreas Klein's career as soloist has taken him to the world's most prestigious venues: London's Wigmore Hall, Berlin's Philharmonic Hall, New York's Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and to Berlin, Rome, Milan, Bern, Leipzig and Dresden. He has toured Europe, the Middle East and the USA, appearing on major concert series in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Cleveland, Houston and Seattle to name a view. The Tagesspiegel wrote of his concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker playing W.A. Mozart's Concerto KV 459, "Humorous flamboyancy and impeccable technique, grace, melodious sound and plenty of brilliance." He is at home with the grandeur of playing with the Berliner Philharmoniker or the vast reaches of the Ravinia Festival (where he received two standing ovations) as he is with the intimacy of Le Poisson Rouge (NYC). He has extensively toured North America, with ensembles including the Salzburg Chamber Soloists (a 20-city tour) and the Festival Strings of Lucerne (10 cities) and in South America, where he performed L.v. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in Peru, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Brazil. Some exotic places on his concert tours included Damascus and Yerevan.
Andreas Klein has appeared with the Berliner Symphoniker, Radio-Symphonie-Orchester-Berlin, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Halle Orchestra and Kammerorchester Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Frankfurt. "Virtuous, but not booming, shining and playful with a singing tone and elegant declamation, the musical melodies of this beautiful concerto evolved." The late L.v. Beethoven Sonata Recital in Dresden was broadcast nationwide by MDR Radio.
In the USA, Andreas Klein was the soloist with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists with W.A. Mozart Concerti for 20 performances including Mexico City in El Centro Historico and the Sala Nezahuolkoyotl, California's Stanford University, Krannert Center, Palm Beach, Boston, and at the Newman Center in Denver the concert was filmed. In an earlier season he toured with the Festival Strings Lucerne appearing at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, Kennedy Center in DC, Spivey Hall, Atlanta, Wortham Center in Houston, and Mechanics Hall near Boston. Other appearances during the last seasons included the Oregon Mozart Players, the Virginia, Knoxville, Evansville, Green Bay, Springfield, Missouri, Santa Fe, West Virginia, Key West, the Atlantic Classical and Valdosta Symphonies.
Since his meteoric start in his native Germany, performing recitals and as soloist with orchestra, Andreas Klein eventually answered the call to go to the Juilliard School in New York. But the highly focussed and musical approach to every work he performs was nurtured by one of his early teachers, the great Claudio Arrau. It is a philosophy Klein is credited with continuing.
In recent years Andreas Klein has added more forays into chamber music alongside his concerto and recital repertoire, including major projects with the Minetti Quartet and the Casals Quartet (Schumann’s Piano Quintet – USA tour and Casals Festival, Puerto Rico). These collaborations have taken him to important venues such as Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Spivey Hall near Atlanta and the Wortham Center in Houston.
A frequent broadcaster, Andreas Klein has often appeared on National Public Radio's "Performance Today", American Public Radio's "St. Paul Sunday" and WFMT Chicago; a live video broadcast on WGBH Boston and KUHF Houston. PBS aired "Intermezzo with Andreas Klein". Of his CD releases, “Dancing Through Time” was featured in a two-hour special edition of "The Piano Bench" on KUHF Radio, Houston.
His recordings, “Piano Sonatas” and his album of music by L.v. Beethoven and A. Berg, have won admiring reviews. The New York Times raved, "Mr. Klein is an excellent pianist. In Berg's Sonata the voluptuous haze was blown away: one followed the progress of every theme and motive as they steadily transformed themselves into a single architectural design." For the Archives of The Deutschland Sender and DS Kultur Radio in Berlin he recorded seldom performed works by Ferruccio Busoni, Alberto Ginastera and Igor Stravinsky. He is also an admired recording producer. And his self-composed new cadenzas for W.A. Mozart piano concertos have also won widespread praise. “Whatever the composer, whatever the project,” he says, “for me it is about being inside the music.” |
