Christopher O'Riley - Beyond Radiohead

We wanted to share this great write-up on Christopher O'Riley that we found in the Oakland Tribune. The article was in preparation for a concert that O'Riley gave at San Jose State, and it talked about how Christopher O'Riley's piano recital skills in the standard repertory are often overlooked because of his status as a radio host and because of his fame doing arrangements of Radiohead (like on our album "Out of My Hands"). But, the reason that O'Riley's been able to have the career he's had is that he above all else, an outstanding pianist.

Here is an excerpt from the article, and we encourage you to read it in its entirety at the Oakland Tribune Website.

Christopher O'Riley — radio host and Radiohead fan — to play works by Beethoven at S.J. State

By Richard Scheinin

...O'Riley also loves to talk about his No. 1 obsession of recent years: the band Radiohead, a favorite of many classical musicians. Trouble is, O'Riley's public profile as radio host and Radiohead lover has sometimes obscured the fact that he is also a piano recitalist of the first rank, one who routinely delves into core repertory. He has devoted most of his career to performing the works of Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Schumann and others — including Beethoven.

Now, here's your chance to witness O'Riley's talents as a Beethoven interpreter: Saturday at San Jose State University, he will give an all-Beethoven recital, performing a pair of monumental works, the Diabelli Variations and the late-period Sonata in C minor, Op. 111. He is coming at the invitation of the American Beethoven Society, which brings a leading Beethoven interpreter to San Jose State each year. Richard Goode, Garrick Ohlsson, Anton Kuerti and Angela Hewitt have performed in the past.

"And Chris's Beethoven is like no one else's," says William Meredith, director of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State, the event's co-sponsor. (The concert is a benefit for the center's fund for acquiring new manuscripts, first editions and other Beethoveniana.) "He carries you away from banal everyday life into a wide-open creative musical space...

Read the full article on InsideBayArea.com