Pianist Christopher O'Riley In Recital At Oakland University

Pianist Christopher O'Riley, known for his exuberant performance style and bold, wide-ranging programs, will give a solo recital at Varner Recital Hall Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 3 PM as part of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit's Oakland University Series. His program includes Brahms's Three Intermezzi, Op. 117, Bach's Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830, Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 9, "Black Mass," Op. 68 and Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 36 (performed in its original 1913 version). Tickets, priced at $30 for adults and $15 for students, are available by phone at 248-855-6070 or online at www.CMSDetroit.org.

Acclaimed for his engaging and deeply committed performances, Christopher O'Riley is known to millions as the host of NPR's From the Top. His repertoire spans a kaleidoscopic array of music from the pre-baroque to present-day. He performs around the world and has garnered widespread praise for his untiring efforts to reach new audiences.

Now in his fifteenth year on air, Christopher O'Riley introduces the next generation of classical-music stars to almost a million listeners each week on >From the Top, broadcast by 250 stations across the United States. O'Riley also hosted the Emmy Award-winning television series From the Top at Carnegie Hall, and has collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Bobby McFerrin, Midori, Béla Fleck, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Sir James Galway, Michael Feinstein, and many more.

Christopher O'Riley has performed as a soloist with virtually all of the major American orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, National Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony. He led the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on a two-week tour of ten American cities performing concertos by Bach, Mozart, and Liszt. In addition, O'Riley has performed recitals throughout North America, Europe, and Australia.

Living by the Duke Ellington adage "There are only two kinds of music, good music and bad," O'Riley - a proponent of the former in all of its guises - has received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and an equally coveted four-star review from Rolling Stone magazine. O'Riley strives to introduce new audiences to classical music with an almost missionary zeal by performing piano arrangements of music by Radiohead, Elliott Smith, Pink Floyd, and Nirvana alongside traditional classical repertoire

O'Riley also tours with a program called Shuffle.Play.Listen together with the cellist Matt Haimovitz that combines classical and contemporary repertoire.

A prolific recording artist, O'Riley has recorded the music of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Scriabin, Liszt, Ravel, Gershwin, Debussy, and John Adams for Sony Classical, Oxingale Records, RCA Red Seal, Decca, and Harmonia Mundi.

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