Twin Cities Concert Association

Visit Anthony Molinaro’s website

Already being hailed as “one of the hottest young pianists in the world,” Anthony Molinaro’s stunning performances and unique versatility have captivated audiences and critics alike since his victory at the 1997 Naumburg International Piano Competition. Acclaimed for his “edge-of-the-seat brilliance” and “musically imaginative mind,” Mr. Molinaro’s performances have taken him to major music centers throughout the country including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York’s Alice Tully Hall. He has also been featured on Ravinia’s Rising Stars Series, The Young Artist Series at the Kravis Center (West Palm Beach), and the Charles Vanda Master Series in Las Vegas. Recent concerto engagements include the Arkansas, Lake Forest, Louisville, Napa Valley, Naples, Richmond, and Syracuse Symphony Orchestras. He has also performed with the Canton, Cape Cod, Eugene, Flint, Savannah, and Utica Symphonies as well as the Chicago Sinfonietta and Chicago Jazz Orchestra. Outside the U.S. Anthony has recently played in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, and on the island of Anguilla.

In addition to his traditional concert repertoire, Mr. Molinaro is also a gifted composer and jazz artist, giving him a musical dimension uncommon to artists of his generation. He often plays his own cadenzas in Mozart and Beethoven concerti, and his “free-wheeling” and “unconventional” rendition of Rhapsody in Blue features improvised cadenzas. Highlights of the 2004-2005 season will include the November premier of his first Piano Concerto with the Catskill Symphony and a return engagement with The Chicago Jazz Orchestra featuring his version of Rhapsody in Blue arranged for big band. Mr. Molinaro will also appear with The Northwest Indiana Symphony and give recitals in Chicago, New York, Ft. Myers, and at Northern Illinois University and the Grand Teton Music Festival among others. His continued collaboration with the harmonica virtuoso Howard Levy (The Molinaro-Levy Project – featured in the February 2004 issue of Downbeat Magazine) will include an extended European tour throughout Germany, Italy, and The Netherlands. Finally, Mr. Molinaro will give a series of concerts with his own jazz trio featuring seven time Grammy-Award winner Paul Wertico on Drums.

Mr. Molinaro records exclusively for Nineteen-Eight Records, a label he founded in 2001. His debut CD, “The Bach Sessions” features The Goldberg Variations and the F Minor and A Major Concertos with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton. His follow-up recording, “New Blue,” is a Gershwin collection featuring his own solo version of Rhapsody in Blue. Titled “New Blue,” the disc also includes Three Preludes and Anthony’s arrangements and improvisations on the Gershwin classics Summertime, Someone To Watch Over Me, Embraceable You, and I Got Rhythm. His most recent recording, “The Molinaro-Levy Project, LIVE” is a collection of performances from The Green Mill in Chicago and a pair of venues in upstate NY.

Mr. Molinaro currently divides his time between his native Chicago and Rome, Italy. He studied at the University of North Texas with Pamela Mia Paul and later with Ursula Oppens at Northwestern University. He has won several awards in addition to the Naumburg Prize, most notably the William C. Byrd International Piano Competition and the 1995 National Piano Fellowship from the American Pianist Association. When not concertizing, Anthony devotes time to music education and for three summers coordinated a music program for physically challenged children in South Hampton, New York.

Reviews:

An exceptionally persuasive solo performance…  It was not difficult to discern the perpetual-motion ostinatos of Prokofiev’s Seventh Piano Sonata in Molinaro’s dynamic, radical transformation of “Back Home in Indiana,” nor the driving energy of Prokofiev’s Toccata in Molinaro’s similarly propulsive “19/8.” But in every solo piece Molinaro played, from his Keith Jarrett-influenced rewriting of “Summertime” to his ferociously syncopated stride-piano sendup “Sketchy” (composed with Howard Levy), Molinaro acquitted himself as an original, often iconoclastic thinker equipped with a leonine technique.

- The Chicago Tribune

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Molinaro’s playing exploded one’s long held notion of the relationship between competitions and mediocrity… brilliant music making…a highly charged performance that will not soon be forgotten or surpassed.

- Newark Star-Ledger

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A lovely singing line in the right hand, a strong left hand that can sing just as beautifully, an even control of rapid configuration, ease and clarity in the distinction of contrapuntal voices, immediate concentration. He is already a fine melodist, and the importance of the slow sections, done with persuasive rubato, seemed to mount continuously. When the “Aria” (Goldberg Variations) came back at the end, it had its history not just behind but within it, for what had been merely beguiling at the start of the work was now being more deeply explored.

- New York Times

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About the most lively interpretation (Rhapsody in Blue) one could imagine. He put the jazz and blues back into a piece inspired by the same.

- Chicago Sun-Times

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A freshness that I have found in no other performance (the Goldberg Variations)… you have to physically respond to its infectious energy. Molinaro’s performances of the two Bach Concertos are as breathtaking as Gould’s.

- Listener magazine

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Anthony Molinaro dazzled the crowd in the Gershwin Concerto (Syracuse Symphony) with crisp fingerwork and a genuine flair for the Gershwin style. More than just glitz, however, Molinaro brought a sensuous touch to the work. His cadenza to the second movement was dreamy and mesmerizing, placing a spin on this work that is often lacking by more aggressive soloists. The tremendous standing ovation at the conclusion of the work was well-earned.

- The Syracuse Post Standard

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He provided an Elysian performance (Beethoven Concerto #4)… strong, spacious and thoughtful, with welcome touches of poetry and finesse. From start to finish, this was a reading that reflected up-to-the-minute searching by a deeply thoughtful musician. Spontaneity took a deep breath in every bar and the delicacy of fingerwork and shading of tone was remarkable. I must say this young American pianist combines magnetism with imagination. His crisp, clean articulation and preference for transparent textures reminded this listener of renowned pianist and Beethoven interpreter Wilhelm Kempff. 

- The Napa Valley Register

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Anthony Molinaro performed Bach’s Piano Concerto in D Minor with such aristocratic grace that he reached the heart of this glorious baroque work without distraction or detour. With the collaboration of the orchestra (Naples Philharmonic), Molinaro conveyed the grandeur, the delicate tracery and poetic momentum of Bach’s masterpiece while also underlining its timelessness.

- Naples Tribune

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Played with laudable verve and intelligence by Anthony Molinaro, his insightful readings of two Bach keyboard concertos convinced from the very first notes. Molinaro made an important statement of who he is as a musician and carried the music forward in accounts that were finely articulated and artfully embellished.

- Louisville Courier-Journal

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Edge-of-the-seat brilliance…absolutely first rate performances

- Salt Lake City Deseret News

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Judging by this performance (Rachmaninoff Concerto #3), his name will soon be on every music lover’s lips. Not only did he display the technical skills necessary to bring off this most difficult of Rachmaninoff’s four concertos, he also gave a singularly convincing interpretation that artists twice his age would be lucky to achieve.

- The Flint Journal

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Molinaro’s free-wheeling and unconventional rendition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue will not soon be forgotten…with his fresh manner, razor sharp precision, and unanticipated improvisations so true to the spirit, if not the letter, of Gershwin.

- The Southhampton Press

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One of the hottest young pianists in the world… A gorgeous example of a sublimely talented and fiercely confident young artist intent on making a musical statement.

- The Eugene Register Guard