Celebrated Composer Tobias Picker Gives Free Concert at BC

Picker/Oppens in Performance and Dialog

Ursula Oppens and Tobias Picker will perform the two-piano version of Picker’s Keys to the City on Tuesday, April 28, at 12:30 p.m. at the Levenson Recital Hall.  The performance is part of the Music in Polycultural America series organized by the H. Wiley Hitchcock Institute.

Written for the centennial of the Brooklyn Bridge, Keys to the City was recently recorded by the two pianists for the Wergo label.

A celebrated composer, Picker began composing at the age of eight and studied at the Manhattan School of Music.  By the time he turned twenty, he was already considered one of America's sought-after composers in every genre, getting performance requests from the world's leading orchestras.  He has received numerous awards including the Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  The Wall Street Journal called him "our finest composer for the lyric stage."

A Distinguished Professor at BC, Oppens is one of the few pianists today who has won equal renown as an interpreter of the established repertoire and as a champion of contemporary music.  After her Carnegie Hall debut in 1969, Oppens has performed as a soloist with nearly every major orchestra in the U.S. and the world, and she’s been nominated twice for a Grammy Award.  Critics have praised her as a "compelling musician" whose interpretations are "formidably eloquent," and characterized by "energy and subtlety, finding the muscle and poetic heart in the music."

After the performance, Oppens and Picker will talk about New York’s new music scene.