Avery Gagliano is a thoughtful and reflective interpreter, and one looks forward to her future performances.” – South Florida Classical Review

“Her ability to inhabit every room in the immense imagination of Frédéric Chopin came as a revelation.” – New York Classical Review

Avery is a recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Robert McDonald, Gary Graffman, and Jonathan Biss. In Fall 2024, she joins Sir András Schiff’s Performance Programme for Young Pianists at the Kronberg Academy in Germany. 

The artistic director Piotr Paleczny writes :

🎹 Avery GAGLIANO

• 9.08.2024 16:00
  Wonderful recital – crystalline musicality and naturalness of the game!
  A pianist without exception devoted to the message of the depth of music, honest and modest – avoiding non-musical, cheap, theatrical gestures intended to arouse and unfortunately often effectively inducing applause from the audience.
  The entire second part of Avery Gagliano’s recital was filled with one monumental work. Schubert- exquisitely performed, extremely demanding Sonata in B flat major in D. 960 !!
  Well done and hearty congratulations 👏👏👏

I was very pleased to be able to hear this recital that Prof Paleczny had praised so highly.

Due to a copyright problem I was not able to hear the last recital of this year’s festival by Alberto Nosé and decided that I would listen instead to this beautiful programme of Avery Gagliano that I had missed but was still available on streaming.

Playing of a true musician and it was her encore of ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring ‘ that reminded me of Dame Myra Hess as had her whole programme.The imperious opening of Handel’s 5th Suite was played with a natural musicianship that allowed the music to breathe so beautifully.Rich golden sounds with hands that seemed to belong to the keys as they extracted the very life blood that was hidden within each note.

Uncle Tobbs (Tobias Matthay) the teacher of both Dame Myra Hess and Dame Moura Lympany wrote many a treatise on the art of touch .It was though these two great ladies who could show the world that with simple musicianship and infinite gradations of sound what it meant to make the music speak without resorting to crowd pleasing circus tricks.Murray Perahia and Andras Schiff have taken over that mantle today and they can take the most simple music and imbue it with such poignant meaning.Not for them the virtuosity or grandiloquence of the works of the Russian repertoire but more attuned to the deeply meaningful works of the Viennese classics where a lifetime is not enough to delve into the inner meaning of such masterpieces.

Avery today just looking a her programme showed the same selfless musicianship where the performer is at the service of the composer, delving deeply into the scores to find their inner meaning.There was a beautiful flowing tempo to the Allemande of the Handel Suite with a stimulating dialogue between the two hands.Even the Courante had a dynamic drive but always with a subtle musical shape to each phrase.The majestic opening of the Air with variations belied the simplicity with which she played this innocent melody.Variations that were played with a clarity and ever more exhilaration.

Even in Chopin her restrained passion and luminosity of sound gave such nobility to one of Chopin’s most passionate outpourings,the Nocturne op 55 n. 2 .Beautifully moulded mazurkas showed off the robust dance and deeply nostalgic melancholy of these miniature tone poems.

A completely different sound for Ravel that had a natural flexibility but above all a simplicity of ravishing glowing sound.The minuet was played with a velvet beauty to the sound with glowing colours glistening as the music moved inexorably forward.There was a dynamic drive to the Animé of moving harmonies and sumptuous sounds.

It was Schubert’s last Sonata ,though, that was given a monumental performance with the simplicity and poise of this great outpouring of song.The beauty of the opening with the ominous bass trill hardly changing the atmosphere but was a premonition of the deep uncertainty that was obviously encircling Schubert in his final year on this earth.In fact there was always a sense of the unknown as the modulations and even the attempts at bucolic brilliance always had a slight shadow over them thanks to Avery’s extraordinary poetic sensitivity.Such was her scrupulous attention to the composers wishes she even included the repeat of the first movement which includes some very important bars that are very often overlooked in trying not to overburden the listener.This is never the case for a true interpreter because such is the musical discourse that the listener can be taken on a wondrous voyage of discovery together.There was a simple noble beauty to the slow movement with full rich sound of the central chorale .A brilliant Scherzo and a trio that was allowed to speak for itself without any exaggeration.A slightly reticent Rondo that built in energy and depth each time that it was called to arms.Passion and rhythmic energy went hand in hand with the glorious outpouring of Schubert’s seemingly endless mellifluous invention.A performance of a true musician but also of a pianist of remarkable technical command and authority .

Two encores for a very enthusiastic audience that had listened with rapt attention to the wonderful music making that Avery had shared with them. ‘Jesu Joy of Man’S Desiring’ in the famous transcription of J.S. Bach by Myra Hess and a final rumbustuous Mazurka by Chopin.