Liaisons: an Interview With Pianist and Arranger Anthony de Mare
Five years ago, in a quest to find a concert-level piano solo arrangement of Stephen Sondheim’s Putting it Together (from Sunday in the Park With George), I discovered Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim From the Piano. And, as with many of the contemporary pieces I’ve fallen in love with over the course of my career, I wasn’t surprised to see that the collection was commissioned, performed, and recorded by the multi-talented pianist, Anthony de Mare. I’ve played and recorded (and written about) many of the pieces he’s commissioned, but it wasn’t until I had the honor of chatting with him that I grasped how committed he is to bringing new music to the piano repertoire.
Stephen Sondheim, of course, needs no introduction. As the most monumental and prolific musical theater composer of all time, his music has been part of theater and popular culture for over 50 years. What is surprising, however, is that it took so long for his iconic songs to be arranged as piano solos. In the virtuosic tradition of Earl Wilde’s Gershwin arrangements, the piano compositions in the Liaisons collection feature Stephen Sondheim’s music, arranged by some of the world’s leading composers. The ECM recording of the first set of 36 pieces was released in 2015 to critical acclaim, and was so successful that 14 more works are poised to be presented and recorded over the next two years.
Few pianists have the vision to imagine a project this large; even fewer have the entrepreneurial ability, organizational talent, and drive to see it come to fruition. Anthony de Mare is one such rare performer. As one of the world’s foremost champions of contemporary solo piano music, he’s inspired the creation of over 75 works. Unwilling to walk a staid path, this “black sheep” of the performing world combines his playing with acting, dancing, and singing. And, importantly, it’s not a gimmick; he never sacrifices musical integrity for cheap theatrics.
I’ve been blogging for 3 years and it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that I found the courage to ask Anthony de Mare if he’d be willing to be interviewed for No Dead Guys. I was thrilled that he said yes, and that he agreed to chat with me over Zoom about his life, his career, and Liaisons. It’s an honor to feature him on this blog.
As with most pianists, de Mare’s unique training began early. His parents’ eclectic record collection—which included everything from famous classical composers, Connie Francis, Frank Sinatra, musicals, film scores, and big band music to test pattern records of electronics—primed de Mare’s ear to appreciate an enormous variety of sounds. He started piano lessons in the 2nd grade, and dance shortly after. A year later, he enrolled in a summer theater program. He was in the 6th grade when he found his love for contemporary music, a passion that was ignited when his piano teacher introduced him to early 20th century music.
“Khachaturian, Bartok, Gershwin and Prokofiev—I just ate it up like crazy,” de Mare says. “I don’t know what about it appealed to me, but there was an instinctual attraction to it. Maybe it was the harmonies and the driving rhythms. I’ve always been a fan of harmony. I would have some of those pieces learned within a week or two, whereas the Beethoven sonatas would take awhile longer. I liked Beethoven, but in those formative years, it wasn’t as intriguing to me.”
This passion for contemporary music stayed with him through his undergraduate degree and eventually blossomed when he did graduate work at the University of Buffalo with pianist and new music advocate Yvar Mikhashoff. During that time, the University was recognized as a Center for Contemporary Music, which Mikhashoff had started with composers Morton Feldman and Lukas Foss. Yvar involved all his students in it.
“He was an energetic and unbounded exponent of new music,” de Mare says. “He fed my eclecticism and love for all of the arts. He groomed me for two European contemporary music competitions (which I won). By the time I got to Young Concert Artists, one of the judges labeled me ‘an evangelist for new music’ which allowed me to be booked very easily, often due to the variety and range of my programming. They could plug me into all of their concert series around the country because I was the black sheep on the roster.”
Mikhashoff, who served as de Mare’s mentor long past the end of his formal education, shared more than his knowledge and love of contemporary music; de Mare credits him with teaching him the business of music—how to find funding, and how to make connections with composers and presenters worldwide. And de Mare flourished from this advice. At Mikhashoff’s suggestion, de Mare programmed John Cage’s The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs for the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition in Holland. It was his first foray into what would eventually gain him international recognition as the pioneer of the Speaking-Singing Pianist genre. Two of the most monumental works in this tradition, Frederic Rzewski’s De Profundis and Jerome Kitzke’s Sunflower Sutra, were composed for him, and both continue to be staples in his repertoire.
“I’ve been proud and honored that people refer to me as the pioneer of this genre,” de Mare says.
As de Mare’s career grew, he continued commissioning, performing, and recording new music, including a three year stint with Meredith Monk’s performing company. But he never lost his interest in theater, or the music of Stephen Sondheim.
“I never lost my love for theater,” de Mare explains, “and I loved to play Earl Wilde’s Gershwin transcriptions and many others. There is a legacy of pianists historically who have made arrangements of Broadway tunes and pop tunes of the day. When it came to Sondheim, no one had ever tackled his songs as piano pieces. I was asked to do an arrangement of a Sondheim song for a summer festival. I had done some previous arrangements of other works, and I thought, oh god, I’m not sure if I’m really equipped to be a composer. It took years for it to come around.”
Gradually, over the years, de Mare became more and more interested in melding dance, theater, and music together. In 2000, he worked with director Sal Trapani on Playing with MySelf, a one-man show he starred in and for which he commissioned 3 new pieces, working with the director, costume designer, set and lighting designer, and a video artist. It ran for 5 nights in New York and toured a few times in Europe and the USA. But he never stopped “imagining how the many beloved songs of the Sondheim canon might sound if transformed into piano works.” Finally, in 2007, de Mare knew it was time to begin pursuing a formal commissioning project to create arrangements of Sondheim’s music for the piano.
Because projects this large take time, immense organization, and a great deal of money, de Mare enlisted Rachel Colbert as co-producer and fundraiser. She was very adamant about establishing a solid foundation for the project throughout its development in the subsequent years. They started with the goal of casting a wide net to attract composers of all different genres and ethnic backgrounds who felt a certain kinship with Sondheim’s work. Partner presenters and individual donors were approached for the commissions, each composer was paid the same favored nations fee, and eventually, the project grew to 36 commissions. Or, as de Mare says, “36 plus 1” because he realized his ambition early on in the project to create his own arrangement of a Sondheim song with Sunday in the Park~Passages from Sunday in the Park with George.
Of course, the commissions didn’t come in at all once. Within the first 18 months or so, 5 or 6 arrived, de Mare learned them, and after a few more trickled in, he felt it was time to start performing them. Over the years, there was a constant dovetailing of performing, learning and recording. Or, as de Mare says, “It sometimes felt as if we were climbing a mountain.” As one of the goals was to attract theater audiences as well as classical, de Mare was thrilled to see that although there were sometimes mixed responses, there was an overall favorability and enthusiasm for the project.
“The goal was basically to keep creating,” de Mare says. “What I was delighted by was the gradual realization that every piece was the perfect marriage between the composer’s style and Sondheim’s material. You could clearly identify the particular composer if you were already familiar with their music.”
He toured the project in the US, U.K., Canada, and Australia, and in 2015, he released his recording of the first 36 pieces on ECM’s prestigious New Series label and was honored to see it cited on numerous “Best Of” lists in 2015. He was featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered," he performed on Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series event: “Reich and Sondheim: In Conversation,” the recording was chosen to be part of Mr. Sondheim’s celebration surrounding his receipt of the 2013 Medal of Honor from the MacDowell Colony, and an excerpt from Liaisons was featured in the HBO documentary “Six by Sondheim.” Later, when music publisher Hal Leonard released the scores of the Liaisons arrangements (on their Rilting imprint), de Mare had the joy of seeing other pianists tackle these pieces—several of them so challenging that even de Mare, with his prodigious artistic and technical abilities, admits he found difficult.
“When other people started playing these pieces,” he jokes, “I was so delighted that they were finding some of them challenging, especially since for several years, I had been performing all of them myself, many of which placed unusual demands on my mettle.Though some of them are deceptively difficult, I discovered there was always a way to work through the challenges, often through collaboration with the composers and even sometimes employing certain technical tricks I learned from Yvar.”
A project as large as the “36 + 1” pieces in the original collection of Liaisons would seem to be enough. Yet, several years ago, de Mare’s former agent contacted him and asked him if he’d considered what they might do to celebrate Sondheim’s 90th birthday in 2020.
“We decided a nice tribute would be to add to the collection with some new commissions,” de Mare recalls. “The first set had been very well funded. At first the idea was to add 9 more pieces, because it would bring it to 45, which is half of 90. Well, Sondheim didn’t like the idea at all. I had always had a secret desire to bring the project up to 50 works, so we added 14 more which brought it to 50 (really 51).”
With the original foundation still in place, Colbert and de Mare found funding—some from original commissioners, some from new donors and presenters—and approached more composers. As with the first 36 commissions, they wanted a balanced collection of composers and styles. The premiere was booked at the 92nd Street Y in New York City for March 2020, the month of Sondheim’s 90th birthday, but two weeks before the performance COVID-19 swept New York and the everyone went into lockdown. For over a year, the pieces just sat on de Mare’s piano, waiting to be heard. Now these pieces will finally be premiered in New York City, Los Angeles, and multiple venues around the country.* Another recording will be made. 14 new arrangements will be available to pianists everywhere. And more of Sondheim’s timeless music will find a home on the classical piano concert stage.
The gift of these pieces (and all the others de Mare has commissioned over the years) will enrich concert piano repertoire for generations to come—a fitting continuation of Yvar Mikhashoff’s legacy. “All roads lead back to him,” de Mare says when speaking of his former teacher. This legacy lives on in de Mare, the many pianists he teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, and the others he has enriched with his music. I am one of those pianists. Through Yvar Mikhashoff’s CD Incitation to Desire, I discovered my passion for music by living composers. Through de Mare’s numerous commissions and recordings, I’ve discovered music that has enriched my repertoire and my life. In an era where doomsayers keep writing that classical music is dead, de Mare and others like him keep the heartbeat going.
*Performance dates and venues:
NYC/EAST COAST PREMIER:
Merkin Hall
New York, NY • Thursday, November 18th, 2021, and Saturday, March 26th, 2022
All new pieces will premiere across two evening concerts, along with pieces from the original collection
WEST COAST PREMIERE:
UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance – Royce Hall
Los Angeles, CA • Sunday, April 3rd, 2022
All new pieces will premiere across two concerts (matinee and evening), along with pieces from the original collection
Other Dates:
Ravinia Festival – Bennett Gordon Hall
Highland Park, IL • Summer, 2022
Selections from the New and Original Collections
Green Music Center – Schroeder Hall
Sonoma County, CA • Sunday, March 6th, 2022
Selections from the New and Original Collections
Lawrence Family JCC
La Jolla, CA • Spring, 2022
Selections from the New and Original Collections
Oregon Center for the Arts - Southern Oregon University
Ashland, OR • Spring or Fall, 2022
Selections from the New and Original Collections
Anthony de Mare is one of the world’s foremost champions of contemporary music. Praised time and again by The New York Times, his versatility over the past three decades has inspired the creation of over 75 new works by some of today’s most distinguished artists allowing him to develop a growing fan base that extends far beyond the traditional contemporary music audience. Known for his entrepreneurial performance projects over the years, he continues to expand the boundaries of the repertoire, which includes the speaking-singing pianist genre that he pioneered over 25 years ago. The Chicago Sun Times says “de Mare’s passion and vision almost radiate from the stage ... he causes all involved –composers, performer and audience members --to think about how music is made and how we listen to it.”
As creator, performer and co-producer of Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano, this landmark commissioning and concert project has definitively brought the work of Stephen Sondheim into the concert hall, through the extraordinary re-imaginings of composers from across the musical spectrum. In addition to the Project’s acclaimed national, U.K., Canadian, and Australian tours, his recording of the first 36 pieces in the compendium, released by ECM’s prestigious New Series label, was cited on numerous “Best Of” lists in 2015 and was included as a winner of the 2016 Grammy Award for Classical Producer of the Year. In addition, Mr. de Mare was recently featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and on HBO’s documentary “Six by Sondheim”. The San Francisco Chronicle declared that “this irresistible new CD set — is a little short of breathtaking … many of the composers give de Mare plenty of opportunities for virtuoso showing off — which he grabs with gusto. The whole undertaking is a triumph.”
In honor of Sondheim’s 90th birthday in 2020, de Mare has extended the Project to include 13 new commissions under the title "Liaisons2020", bringing the total compendium to 50. Announced composers include Timo Andres, Jonathan Batiste, Jeff Beal, Mark Bennett, Christopher Cerrone, Ted Hearne, Stephen Hough, Meredith Monk, Paola Prestini, Kevin Puts, Max Richter and Conrad Tao. A national tour will continue through 2021 with performances at the 92nd Street Y in NYC, UCLA’s Royce Hall, Ravinia, Williams College (Sondheim’s alma mater), Maverick Concerts, University of Iowa, Southern Oregon University, among others. Another U.K. tour is also in the works.
The adaptability of his programming to traditional classical, jazz and theater spaces speaks to the range of de Mare’s versatility. His performances over the years span five continents and his discography of over twenty recordings includes works by Ives, Cowell, & Harrison, Cage and Meredith Monk, Astor Piazzolla, Frederic Rzewski and many others. Since his debut with Young Concert Artists, his accolades and awards have included First Prize and Audience Prize at the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition (The Netherlands) and The International Contemporary Piano Competition of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France). He gave his Carnegie Hall debut at Zankel Hall in 2005.
A Steinway Artist, he currently is Professor of Piano at Manhattan School of Music and New York University. He also serves as new music curator for the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in NYC.
Mr. de Mare is a Steinway artist.
www.liaisonsproject.com