Andrew Staupe: Piano
Pianist Andrew Staupe is emerging as one of the distinctive voices of a new generation of pianists. Andrew has appeared as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Utah Symphony, Arkansas Symphony, Tallahassee Symphony, and many other orchestras throughout the United States. He has collaborated with distinguished conductors Osmo Vänskä, Bobby McFerrin, Jahja Ling, Gerard Schwarz, Andrew Litton, Cristian Macelaru, Larry Rachleff, Lucas Richman, Rossen Milanov, Daniel Hege, and Josep-Caballé Domenech. He has performed across the United States and extensively in Europe, appearing in Russia, Holland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, France, Germany, and Bulgaria. On tour in Europe, he has appeared in distinguished concert venues including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Rachmaninov Hall in Moscow, the Salle Cortot in Paris, and the Ateneul Roman in Romania. In 2012 Andrew made his Carnegie Hall debut to critical acclaim, in which New York Concert Review stated that “Staupe gave a brilliant performance, handling the virtuosic demands with apparent ease… I was stunned- this was one of the most incredible performances… A once in a lifetime performance!”
An avid chamber musician, Andrew has jammed with legendary vocalist Bobby McFerrin, played Tangos with the Assad Brothers, and has performed with Chee-Yun, Sharon Robinson, Martin Chalifour, Jessica Rivera, Desmond Hoebig, James Dunham, and Joseph Swensen. Andrew has a keen interest in performing new music and has premiered a number of works for solo piano and chamber ensemble by composers Howard Shore, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Christopher Walczak, Christopher Goddard, among numerous others. Other notable performances include concerts at the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress in Washington DC, and Steinway Hall in New York City. He has performed twice on American Public Media’s “Performance Today,” and on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” in 2004.
Deeply committed to teaching, Andrew is an Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Utah, and gives frequent master classes around the country. A native of Saint Paul, Minnesota, he earned his Doctorate at Rice University with Jon Kimura Parker, and studied at the University of Minnesota with Lydia Artymiw.
“Staupe, who just turned 30, has fabulous technique… When it was over, audience members stood and cheered.”
– Michael Anthony on Richard Strauss’s Burleske in D minor with the Minnesota Orchestra
Star Tribune (full review here)
“Staupe’s thoughtful, confident interpretation felt like a key stride forward in a career that’s gathering momentum.”
– Rob Hubbard on Richard Strauss’s Burleske in D minor with the Minnesota Orchestra
Pioneer Press (full review here)
“Pianist Andrew Staupe blew out the room… in an awe-inspiring performance”
– Eric E. Harrison on Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra
Arkansas Online (full review here)
“Mr. Staupe’s cadenza was the highlight of the concert (if not season) for me and doubtless the audience. You could have heard a pin drop during the several mesmerizing minutes. He played the Largo with delicacy and occasionally surprisingly forceful phrasing, concluding with a show-stopping Rondo. ”
– John F. Glass on Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
dramaurge.com (full review here)
“Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, begun originally as a symphony, was brilliantly performed by guest pianist and Minnesota native Andrew Staupe. From his delicately elegiac phrasing to his bullet-like precision, his playing was expressive, rhythmically driven and thrilling. The orchestra clearly appreciates him, the audience awarded an ovation and bravos.”
– Drue Fergison on Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Rochester Symphony Orchestra
Post Bulletin
“Andrew Staupe, whose technical skills were not only impressive but compelled audience members to breathe, at his finish, an audible Wow!”
– Harry Rolnick on the 2012 Pro Musicis Recital at Carnegie Hall
ConcertoNet (full review here)
“Mr. Staupe gave a brilliant performance, handling the virtuosic demands with apparent ease…this was one of the most incredible performances of this masterpiece I have ever heard, live or recorded…”
– Jeffrey Williams on the 2012 Pro Musicis Recital at Carnegie Hall
New York Concert Review (full review here)
“Staupe is wonderfully light-fingered and at the same time forceful. He was ruminative on the Bach – the Fantasy and Fugue in A minor, BWV 904 – and his superb sense of classical proportion would have delighted the late Charles Rosen on the Mozart sonata, K. 576 in in D major… He’s an exceptional Chopin performer – he makes it seem as if the Chopin were easy to play (which any pianist knows is not usually the case), and he also makes what he plays emotional without sentimentality.”
– Bob Hughes (former Wall Street Journal reporter) on a Pro Musicis at the Salle Cortot Paris
Classical TV
“Sometimes a concert is more than a concert…Staupe in particular communicated a personal voice nevertheless rooted in a profound understanding of the material he played. His broad musical interests—from medieval to chamber to new works—lent depth to his phrasing, while his voicing underscored the emotional structure of the music as a natural expression of its compositional structure. In addition, his ability to draw tonal color from the piano lent authentic variety to his interpretations of composers as different as Scarlatti, Mendelssohn and Debussy.”
– Judy Gelman Myers on the 2012 Pro Musicis Recital at Weill Recital Hall
City Arts (full review here)
“Staupe performed with great energy and confidence, showing superb technique and control…this is a career on the rise and a performer to watch.”
– David Hawley on Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.1 with the Minnesota Orchestra
Pioneer Press (full review here)
“…the St. Paul native has both the chops and the theatrical flair [Rachmaninoff’s First Concerto] needs. Winning in the melancholic Andante, Staupe also captured the dash and fizz of the outer movements without lapsing into grandiloquence. We ought to hear him again soon.”
– Larry Fuchsberg on Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.1 with the Minnesota Orchestra
Star Tribune
“Staupe lived up to the hype. His playing was able to encompass, in a matter of seconds, precise and almost mechanical force, impish playfulness, twinkling delicacy, bullet-like octaves and rhapsodic singing…”
– Drue Fergison on Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Rochester Symphony Orchestra
Post-Bulletin (full review here)
“Staupe’s Liszt performance Saturday was impressive. He easily surmounted the formidable technical hurdles, taking Liszt’s big double- octave passages at breathtaking speed while sustaining maximum clarity and an intensity that never seemed forced… his treatment of the work’s lyrical elements showed a most appropriate affinity for long singing lines, yet there was an aristocratic coolness in his approach. The result, from the audience, was a standing ovation.”
– Michael Anthony on Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Minnesota Orchestra
Star Tribune
Website
Reviews
“This is a career on the rise and a performer to watch.”
“Mr. Staupe gave a brilliant performance, handling the virtuosic demands with apparent ease… this was one of the most incredible performances of this masterpiece I have ever heard, live or recorded.”
“[Staupe’s] technical skills were not only impressive but compelled audience members to breathe, at his finish, an audible “Wow!”
Audio
Felix Mendelsohn: Fantasy in F# minor, Op. 28.
Domenico Scarlatti: Sonata in b minor.
Claude Debussy: Cathedrale Engloutie, Preludes Bk. 1.
Claude Debussy: La Terrasse des Audiences
Isaac Albéniz: Evocacian
Frédéric Chopin: Scherzo No. 3
Heitor Villa-Lobos: Rudepoema
Arvo Pärt: Fur Alina
Videos
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3
with the SSSO, Cristian Macelaru Music Director
March 12, 2011