About This Show

In College fuses classical and modern music with elements of contemporary storytelling to result in a restrained and powerful onstage confessional that defies classification.

Celebrated pianist Adam Tendler goes back to school, presenting for the first time in over a decade works studied in conservatory, including Béla Bartok’s hair-raising Etudes and Beethoven’s thrilling and beloved “Waldstein” Sonata.

At the centerpiece of the program, Tendler presents his own spoken-word piece, In College, for live speaker and 8 pre-recorded voices. A virtual memory well, In College peppers the audience with over 200 hundred memories that Tendler collected from his time at one of the country’s leading music conservatories.

The program will close with Drew Baker’s “Stress Position” for amplified piano, a protest piece that explores, through extreme demands on its pianist, themes of torture, pain and endurance.