The New York Times“One admired the elegance of Ms. McDermott’s playing: electric in its eagerness but always poised, never out of control…”
St. Louis Post Dispatch“Anne-Marie McDermott plays with both technical virtuosity and evident joy. The music comes alive under her fingers.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer“Her playing has rigor: Transitional passages that some pianist throw away are her source of momentum. More reflective passages have elasticity in the phrasing, which is where the jazz element is strongly felt. Her pounding rhythms in the final movement of the concerto were so compellingly urban that the Parisian traffic scenes depicted in An American in Paris, which the orchestra played later, seemed a bit languid.”
Fanfare“In a lifetime of listening, this is, hands down, the finest recording of Mozart piano concertos I’ve ever heard.”
San Jose Mercury News“An exquisite player, McDermott established the tone and mood of the opening Allegro: firm touch, clear lines—tailored to the shadowy, up-down dynamic flow of the string orchestra. McDermott was the spine of the performance, with her crisp and crashing lines.”
Nashville Scene“[Nashville Symphony performed] Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15 in B-flat major, a work that is both playful and fiery in equal measure. Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott,…mostly emphasized the concerto’s brilliant side during her performance…Yet there was also warmth and immediacy in her playing, especially in the lyrical slow movement. Indeed, she played this movement with unfailing concentration, which kept the audience riveted even when one patron inadvertently smashed a drinking glass or plate on the floor. “
BBC Music Magazine”McDermott’s heart has heft and translucence, structural certainty and seasoned humanity…”
Aspen Times“McDemott grounded any impetuosity with burnished piano playing. Rhythmically precise, she never lost a touch that created richness of sound, weaving dynamic changes in sync with Salerno-Sonnenberg.”
Arizona Daily Star“McDermott embodies all the technical skills we have come to expect from her: a firm yet elegant touch that is alternately purposeful and spontaneous. She produces clean, crisp lines where every note speaks for itself, and balances mood and tempo with a fluidity that sometimes added a wholly contemporary sound that could have been written 25 years ago instead of 225 years ago. But it was what we saw in her expressions, the emotional connection she made to the music, that drew us to her. She winced and squeezed her eyes shut when the music slowed, then smiled as her fingers danced along the keys when the tempo raced. In the second movement, one of the longest piano solos of the 30-minute work, McDermott got lost in sweeping, lush passages.”
One of the most dazzling American pianists of her generation, Anne-Marie McDermott has played concertos, recitals, and chamber music in hundreds of cities throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. She is one of the most versatile, respected, and best-reviewed pianists of our time. McDermott continues her tenure as music and artistic director of the Bravo! Vail music festival, in Colorado, through 2026, which hosts world-renowned artists and orchestras from around the world. She is also the artistic director of the Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival, in Florida.
Highlights of McDermott’s 2024-25 season include three performances of the Piano Concerto by the 20th-century American composer Amy Cheney Beach with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, with which she makes her subscription debut, and with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (MA); her debut in Galway, Ireland, performing music by Bach, Busoni, and Brahms at a Music for Galway recital; Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Paducah Symphony Orchestra (KY); Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Des Moines Symphony, Palm Beach Symphony, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra USA (WA); performances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall in New York City, and on tour in Chicago, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, Ashland (OR), and Vienna (VA); a special chamber music program at the New World Symphony, in Miami Beach, that includes Mozart’s Quintet in E-flat major and Olivier Messiaen’s wartime masterwork Quartet for the End of Time; performances as a member of the SPA Trio—with soprano Susanna Phillips and violist Paul Neubauer—at the Rockefeller University (New York City), and at Arizona Friends of Chamber Music (Tucson); and a chamber music program at the McKnight Center for the Performing Arts, in Stillwater (OK).
McDermott’s 2023-24 season included performances with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, both resulting in immediate re-engagements. She also performed Mozart with the New York Philharmonic at the McKnight Center in Stillwater. Recent international highlights include recitals in France at the famed Piano aux Jacobins, in Toulouse; performances with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra at the Cartagena International Music Festival; and an all-Haydn recital tour of China.
The breadth of McDermott’s repertoire ranges from Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven to Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and Scriabin, also including works by today’s most influential composers. A recording artist, McDermott is currently recording the complete Beethoven piano concertos with Mexico City’s illustrious Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, under conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto. She has also recorded the complete piano sonatas of Prokofiev, solo works by Chopin, Bach’s English Suites and Partitas (Editor’s Choice, GramophoneMagazine), and Gershwin’s complete works for piano and orchestra with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (also Editor’s Choice, GramophoneMagazine). In 2013 she released an album of Mozart concertos with the Calder Quartet that was praised as “exceptional on every count” by Gramophone Magazine. She has recorded five Haydn piano sonatas and two Haydn concertos with the Odense Philharmonic, in Denmark, including two cadenzas written by the late American composer Charles Wuorinen.
In recent years, McDermott participated in the New Century Chamber Orchestra’s Silver Jubilee all-Gershwin program and embarked on a cycle of Beethoven concertos at Santa Fe Pro Musica. She also premiered and recorded a new concerto by the Danish composer Poul Ruders with the Vancouver Symphony, alongside Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Variations, and returned to play Gershwin with the New York Philharmonic at Bravo! Vail. Other recent highlights include performing the Mozart Concerto, K. 595 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Sir Donald Runnicles; the Bach D minor concerto with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra; and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with the New York City-based Le Train Bleu.
McDermott continues to perform with many leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the symphonies of Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Colorado, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Atlanta, San Diego, New Jersey, Columbus, and Baltimore. She has also toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Moscow Virtuosi.
McDermott, who studied at the Manhattan School of Music, is a winner of the Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award for Women, the Young Concert Artists auditions, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. She lives in New York City with her husband Michael.
SEPTEMBER 2024
