Vanessa Wagner – embraces Philip Glass

Vanessa Wagner performs the Etudes by Philip Glass in a recital where repetition and lyricism converge. An intense and layered soundscape full of nuance, color and movement. Anyone who thinks that Philip Glass's piano studies are purely minimalist in nature will be surprised. In the hands of French pianist Vanessa Wagner, they are simultaneously tender and radical, repetitive and decidedly lyrical. Her years of immersion in Romanticism, Impressionism and contemporary music color every passage, causing rhythms and repetitions to breathe, pulse and take on ever new meaning. Her recent recording of the complete cycle was unanimously praised as 'mesmerizing and intensely poetic', and lauded for her 'exceptional sensitivity to sound and color'. Performed live in the Blauwe zaal, this approach gains even more intensity. Each Étude unfolds with its own breath and dramatic arc, each repetition feels like a discovery, and the music opens itself in a way that no recording can capture. A concert as a declaration of love to Philip Glass and at the same time an invitation to experience his Études as one continuous, exceptional whole.