My American Story: North (2CD)

Daniil Trifonov presents MY AMERICAN STORY: NORTH, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin & The Philadelphia Orchestra. Featuring music by Gershwin, Mason Bates, Aaron Copland, John Corigliano, John Cage, Art Tatum, plus Daniil's brand-new own arrangements.

Daniil Trifonov, without question one of the most gifted artists of his generation, has previously explored his voice and cultural roots through landmark interpretations of European classical repertoire. With his latest album, Trifonov retraces his immigrant’s journey in the “New World”, through American piano scores ranging from jazz and swing to modernism, minimalism and popular soundtracks.

The album is a personal reflection on the piano music that has captivated Trifonov and shaped his American Story. It is a subjective journey, with no ambition to be comprehensive or encyclopedic. “I did not wish to record an anthology,” he says. “These are simply pieces that I feel personally connected to. Favorites of mine that speak to me on a musical level.” “I am interested,” he continues “in how the piano has been used in different American genres.” This vivid mosaic of repertoire, says Trifonov, “has introduced me to many of the perspectives, styles, cultures, places, people, stories, and expressions that have formed and informed my American experience.”

The project is chronologically bookended by two great American piano concerti composed almost a century apart: George Gershwin’s audacious, jazzy 1925 Piano Concerto in F, and the world premiere of Mason Bates’ effervescent Piano Concerto, commissioned for Trifonov and premiered by the pianist with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra (the recording preserved here) in 2022. Both are virtuoso showcase works, yet so much more. In between, Trifonov traverses a thrillingly varied path.

The album also includes the Piano Variations (1930) by Aaron Copland, a transcription of Art Tatum’s 1949 recording of “I Cover the Waterfront” by Daniil Trifonov, Bill Evans’s slow, contemplative, harmonically lush version of “When I Fall in Love”, themes from Hollywood films The Firm and American Beauty, as well as John Cage’s iconoclastic 4’33 (1952) – Trifonov’s version captures the essence of that connection: a journey from New York City’s Columbus Circle subway station through the bustle of North America’s most populous, dense, and diverse city, into the green, open space of Central Park.