Pianist Denk wants 'variety show' feel to concerts with SPCO

When award-winning pianist Jeremy Denk joins the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra next year as its new artistic partner, he promises to create "Mozart's iPod shuffle."

Denk, the recipient of a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship and Musical America's 2014 Instrumentalist of the Year, is interested in centuries-apart musical selections that share common themes.

Toward that end, he has many ideas he would like to pursue with the SPCO: exploring Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach, but also delving into more recent work.

"One of the things we have been thinking about is to try to reconstruct Mozart's original subscription concerts, where some of these pieces were premiered, you know, famous piano concertos," Denk said. "They were often kind of a variety show. I'd love to get back to more of that iPod Shuffle feeling of concerts, back when Mozart was alive."

Denk also is eager to re-experience the intimacy of a chamber orchestra. He has appeared with the orchestra regularly in recent years and enjoys coming in to work for as long as a week on a single piece.

"Usually you have a rehearsal that is barely longer than the piece itself," he said on the phone from Boston. "And you have to utter a few brief things, and then you are onstage and you are playing in front of thousands of people."

Another reason Denk likes the St Paul so much is that he went to school with several of the musicians in the SPCO.

Although Denk is known for his virtuoso work at the piano, he also is recognized for his writing own music. He hopes to keep writing while in St. Paul, perhaps even program notes, a type of writing he has criticized in the past for being rooted too much in history and not enough in the musical present.

"I hope it's a part of my general philosophy which is to sort of take the piece apart and see how it works and reconstruct it so that it feels alive for a listener," he said. "And I try to do that when I am playing the piano and I try to do that when I am writing about pieces."

Also on the docket during his three-year stint at the SPCO will be recording and touring with the orchestra.