New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Jeremy Denk will lead a three-part series of online events for the
Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, the live event space and broadcast studio from WNYC and WQXR in New York City, starting this Monday, April 6, at 7pm ET, all at thegreenespace.org. The series, titled Bach's Well-Tempered Lens, features performances and conversations exploring J.S. Bach's life and his Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1. Denk will invite audiences into the technical, musicological, cultural, and philosophical elements involved in his own approach to the piece, and will look at how Bach's themes and shared aspects of the human experience can help to unite us even as we are apart.
Bach's Well-Tempered Lens begins with this Monday's "The Well-Tempered Clavier's Greatest Hits," a deep dive into four moments from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, with Denk at the piano doing analysis and interpretation. The event is also a celebration of the 335th anniversary of Bach's birth, which took place earlier this week. The series continues with "The Mysterious Life of J.S. Bach" on Monday, April 27, which explores a life that was almost as mysterious as Shakespeare's, and "How to Think Like Bach" on Monday, May 11, part discussion, part listening session examining what the human mind does when hearing Bach.
"What you find here is completely new, rejuvenating, alive," remarked Denk on Well-Tempered Clavier. "It doesn't bother tugging at your heartstrings, it just enters your bloodstream."
"Listening to Jeremy Denk play Bach," says Jennifer Sendrwo, the Greene Space Executive Producer, "is a powerful antidote to life's chaos, bringing people together to revel in music that transcends time and continues to inspire joy and provoke our curiosity."
Jeremy Denk recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations for an album released on Nonesuch Records in 2013, and performed Bach's Chromatic
Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903, on his 2019 album, c. 1300-c. 2000. He can be heard performing John Adams's "I Still Play (Pocket Variations)" on the upcoming I Still Play, an album of solo piano compositions by artists who have recorded for Nonesuch, written in honor of the label's longtime President Bob Hurwitz.
