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Pianist Blair McMillen, one of the newest and youngest members of the Yamaha artist roster, is also one of the busiest. In November, he will be traveling to Russia with the Da Capo Chamber Players to perform contemporary music by American and Russian composers. And in December, he’ll be offering a recital at Princeton’s Institute for Advance Study, featuring eight solo works by composers from Princeton.
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McMillen has a talent for bringing contemporary piano literature to life. The New York Times has called his playing “lustrous,” “riveting,” and “prodigiously accomplished and exciting.” In reviewing one performance of a work by a living composer, the paper noted that he has “both the technique to negotiate [the] music and the imagination to find its heart.” This is hardly surprising, since this young maverick prides himself on his membership in “counter)induction,” a composer/performer collective committed to the belief that new music should be both challenging and accessible.
This pianist’s career has already taken him to Lincoln Center, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, and the Moscow Conservatory. His forthcoming return to Russia offers an exciting prospect: “We’ll be performing two concerts in Moscow and two in St. Petersburg,” he reports, “juxtaposing recent Russian and American chamber compositions. I feel that we are doing a real service to composers from both countries. Last time, we played the music of the prominent American composer George Crumb, which they had never heard before.”
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The concert in Princeton should prove to be just as special. “Ever since Roger Sessions taught there,” says McMillen, “Princeton has been home to a range of important composers. I will be playing eight solo works by some of them, including the United States premiere of Frederic Rzewski’s Dust and a world premiere written for me by a wonderful composer named Su Lian Tan — a zany piece with theatrics and extended techniques.” Other composers on the program include Barbara White, Emily Doolittle, Jon Magnussen, Andrew Imbrie, Mario Davidovsky and John Harbison, whose Gatsby Etudes are derived from the composer’s opera, The Great Gatsby.
“I think Yamaha makes a wonderful piano and I am behind what they do in education and in the promotion of music to younger people,” says McMillen. “I am also excited and intrigued by their latest advances in technology. I had known other pianists who were affiliated with Yamaha, and was aware of how generous and considerate the company is in their treatment of artists. That’s why I wanted to form this association. Things are at the beginning right now, but I’m just thrilled, and I’m eagerly looking forward to future collaborations.”
