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de Mare's passion and vision almost radiate from the stage. He underscores, literally you might say, the serious nature of Sondheim's musical accomplishment and he causes all involved -- composers, performer and audience members -- to think about how music is made and how we listen to it.Andrew Patner Chicaco Sun Times
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"In the composer’s own words, De Profundis 'demands a combination of virtuoso technique and a total lack of inhibition on stage.' De Mare has the technique, and his performance of Lost and Found showed he had the attitude as well. More than that, he’s an actor, and he crossed the line between an artist performing the work of another to someone who sounded like he himself had written the words and was creating his own accompaniment.
This was a gripping and moving performance. For the listener, it went beyond observing and admiring from the outside and became a living thing on stage, as if one was sitting in de Mare’s home, listening to him tell his own story. This was an ideal meeting of composer and interpreter, and a unique and wonderful experience."George Grella New York Classical Review
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This was a gripping and moving performance. For the listener, it went beyond observing and admiring from the outside and became a living thing on stage, as if one was sitting in de Mare’s home, listening to him tell his own story. This was an ideal meeting of composer and interpreter, and a unique and wonderful experience."
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“The adventurous pianist Anthony de Mare, a champion of contemporary music, merged his passion for Sondheim with his effort to expand the recital repertory… the resulting project required formidable virtuosity. Mr. de Mare’s playing was dynamic and stylish… I loved it.”
The concert offered a wide range of compositional styles and moods, highly colorful, and superbly played by de Mare.
Liaisons is a revelation… a delightful recital with an exuberant close. De Mare’s playing was superb throughout, a combination of lyrical reflection and extroverted pyrotechnics.
The brainchild of pianist Anthony de Mare... a thrilling program... filled with surprises and inventiveness.
Just when you thought that there wasn't anything new in piano recitals anymore, along comes Anthony de Mare … a first-class pianist whose list of composer friends is a virtual who's who of American music… each piece is a fascinating exploration of the composer's style.
If anyone still doubted Sondheim’s prowess as an instrumental composer, this project should firmly lay those doubts to rest… de Mare’s concert kicked off energetically and his illuminating stage comments relaxed the atmosphere.
The concert offered a wide range of compositional styles and moods, highly colorful, and superbly played by de Mare.
The ambitious endeavor of Anthony de Mare to create Liaisons between musical theater and so-called “art-music” brings out his formidable piano technique and his charming, easy manner.
It's more common to encounter instrumentalists, especially pianists, who bravely perform scores that also require singing. In 2005 at Zankel Hall, the adventurous pianist Anthony de Mare performed Frederic Rzewski's "De Profundis", a 30-minute work that combines ferocious and at times dreamy piano music with the speaking and singing of texts adapted from Oscar Wild's harrowing "De Profundis". As Mr. de Mare played the piece he produced a mesmerizing array of vocal sighs, barks and growls, but also passages of soulful and quiet singing.
The multi-talented Anthony de Mare, for whom the work [De Profundis] was created, gave a virtuoso performance. It's hard to imagine a more committed and compelling performance.
Not one artist in a thousand can bare his heart before the public the way Wilde, Rzewski, and de Mare did to create this deeply affecting performance. It was worth the entire rest of the marathon put together with a couple of New York Philharmonic seasons throw in.
...his recital was one of the most courageous local programs in recent history – an entertaining traversal of American iconoclasm ... "The Alcotts" from Ives "Concord" sonata was tenderly rendered ... and the gigantic "De Profundis" showed de Mare to be an unusually gifted speaker-actor. De Mare, for whom Rzewski wrote the piece, showed notable mastery of its many demands.
...touchingly human, startlingly realist, these [Rzewski's De Profundis and Kreutzer Sonata] had a powerful impact, not least due to de Mare's astonishing ability to play complex textures while speaking dramatically. In fact, Rzewski's music is a pianist's litmus test. Only de Mare could bring enough weight to the keyboard to make it sound the way Rzewski plays it himself. His powerhouse tremolo chords in Piece No. 4 achieved a transcendent fusion of man and machine.
The pianist Anthony de Mare specializes in new music, often with a theatrical twist, and he likes building his concerts around themes that make them into something more akin to a show than to a recital...Mr. de Mare gave a spicy performance of "Cool" from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story (1957), as well as eloquent readings of Lou Harrison's gently exotic Largo Ostinato and Fred Hersch's Little Midnight Nocturne.
...a performance which conceals its skill, its virtuosity and its brilliance in service of a very genuine dedication to an expressive task...the overall impact was original, genuine and refreshing.
'Playing With MySelf' is at once a piano recital of 20th-century works and an abstract, autobiographical solo theater piece about how he came to choose the piano as his primary creative outlet. Along the way, he gives gripping performances of 14 piano works...He is a remarkably uninhibited and physical performer...it provides an imaginative context for Mr. de Mare's impressive talents and personal story. And you get to hear his ferocious pianism.
Every aspect of these works received vibrant handling by de Mare, whose attention to sonic shading and shapes was complete.
Mr. de Mare's protean talents fit his protean program. 'The Alcotts' - a movement from Ives's 'Concord Sonata' - was played as eloquently as I have ever heard it...
Not one artist in a thousand can bare his heart before the public the way Wilde, Rzewski, and de Mare did to create this deeply affecting performance. It was worth the entire rest of the marathon put together with a couple of New York Philharmonic seasons throw in.
Virtuoso Anthony de Mare took over for another Ginsberg text, "Sunflower Sutra" [by Jerome Kitzke]... commissioned by the remarkable de Mare...his level of commitment equals Kitzke's own and he brings gigantic technique to the table.
The recital of American pianist Anthony de Mare was quite an event of the festival...a fascinating show since de Mare presents not only his extraordinary pianism, vocal-showman talents, rhythmic flexibility, but also a great imagination of sound and ease in the realization of extremely different aesthetic ideas.
...de Mare has now gathered his talents into a one-man show, "Playing With MySelf"...which accomplishes the elusive feat of fusing concert music with theater...de Mare possesses genuine talents and noble ambitions, and he comes as close to pulling off this slippery fusion of forms as anyone I'm aware of.
de Mare is an amazing artist, and must be doing for contemporary piano literature what the Kronos Quartet has done for the contemporary string quartet. He is sure-fingered and dexterous, and puts his whole soul into his work. The results are remarkable.
Enthusiastic critics, worldwide rewards: pianist Anthony de Mare is considered a leader of contemporary piano music...The American succeeded in doing something very unusual: he made it possible for his audience to hear music in a new way and unlocked an uncommon dimension of music...In addition to his music, de Mare's performance, too, shares much with the dramatic in theater and film...de Mare's piano creates images and a world of feeling and dreams; it is a living music and it returns music to our selves as a fascinating, new territory.
- translation by Roland Dollinger
Pianist Anthony de Mare took no prisoners on the Auer Hall stage Friday evening...He can romance the keyboard...he can attack the innards of the piano...and make an acoustic instrument sound electronic...he can weave magical shifts of mood...and de Mare can croon and cackle and spew comic lines while negotiating complicated piano music...A superb recital, highlighted by flawless technique.
a theatrical sense, athleticism and intelligence...an authoritative performance by the New York piano virtuoso Anthony de Mare who lights up the stage with his charisma and energy.
...a stunning performance, pianistically virtuosic as well as emotionally taut.
It seems that great teachers can, with their insight, help us to understand, and Anthony de Mare is one of those. His choice of words and organization of his musical material incorporated some of the most profoundly spiritual music (Messiaen) with other influences, jazz, blues, and imagery of people, times and places, internal and external, in a way that illustrated the underlying humanity. De Mare has achieved the Ivesian ideal: to retain the pieces intact, yet make perfect sense of the whole, including contradictions.
'Out of My Hands' - 2005 Grammy Award Nomination – Short-List
Anthony de Mare has found a niche as a contemporary music specialist. That designation does him a disservice. He is a formidable pianist by any standards. His limpid tone, exquisite touch, and impassioned beauty of utterance imbue this program of vignettes by David Del Tredici and Aaron Jay Kernis with artistry of the highest order. This is quite simply beautiful playing. If only some of the power pounding competition winners listened to de Mare they might learn something. De Mare plays superbly and is vividly recorded.
["Wizards & Wildmen"] - One of 2000's Ten Best Releases
...an audacious disk...de Mare, playing at the keyboard, strumming the strings, and even singing along, plumbs the lustrous beauty lurking in the challenging scores.
This is the most illuminating and powerful CRI release I have heard in a very long time.
de Mare sinks his teeth into all of these pieces with the right balance of abandon, taste, and virtuosity. One feels that he really understands where this music comes from, and is able to play into that legacy.
de Mare triumphs in a long and demanding program; Undoubtedly his technique and interpretations are impressive, but even more impressive is the program itself, and the intellect that assembled it.
de Mare's incisive readings of the 18 works offered here...are definitely worth a hearing. ... de Mare, whose commitment to 20th-century music is laudable, gives compelling performances of these stylistically diverse works.
When you're confronted by a mad genius like Tony de Mare, all the traditional criteria fall apart and one is confronted with this "thing" ... what is it? ... This was an amazing program ... absolutely amazing! The whole program was extraordinary!
Tony doesn't just play the piano as he does and speak as he does ... if you go to a lot of his concerts, you become aware of how he programs his events ... that in itself is a real art form and he is a real master of that. Whether the pieces are gay, straight or whatever tonight, the way Tony chose them and ordered them was masterful.
When the audience wasn't giving them standing ovations, they were either stomping their feet to the hot stride piano of Jelly Roll Morton, listening in awe to the beauty of Art Tatum's blissful jazz, or almost brought to tears when they heard, and loved, the Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues by Frederic Rzewski. Mayer and de Mare have taken it upon themselves to educate their audiences with both familiar and undiscovered gems of piano music. They are both master pianists.