Andrew Staupe

“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