Performers
Daniel Baer, piano
Program
Nervous Liturgies: The Piano Music of Robert Savage
Robert Savage | Cowboy Nocturne
Robert Savage | Prelude and Chaconne
Robert Savage | AIDS Ward Scherzo
Robert Savage | Dance of Avoidance
Robert Savage | Piano Sonata No.1
Pianist Daniel Baer brings the music of Robert Savage (1951-1993) to Chicago. Robert Savage, a queer composer who died from complications due to AIDS in 1993, is a largely unknown artist whose music is unpublished and rarely performed. This concert presents Savage’s music from his earliest works to those that he wrote after his AIDS diagnosis in 1988. Savage’s late compositions grapple with his AIDS diagnosis and mortality, reflect his practice of Zen Buddhism, and demonstrate the unique synthesis of popular and academic musical trends that led John Ashbery to describe him as “a serious and very talented musicologist and composer.” Listen to the evolution of a unique American artist composing music of unparalleled and urgent intensity.
