
Sarah Rothenberg
Performing works by Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey
“A pianist renowned for her powerful technical facility and wholehearted performances” – The Phillips Collection
Committed to creating new audiences for classical music and jazz, and a firm believer in the accessibility of great music of all genres, Sarah Rothenberg is recognized internationally as a pianist of “power and introspection” (The New York Times) and “a prolific and creative thinker” (The Wall Street Journal). A “trailblazer” in innovative programming, Sarah Rothenberg has a unique career as pianist, writer, producer, and creator of interdisciplinary performances linking music to literature, visual art and ideas. She is Artistic Director of DACAMERA, internationally recognized as a vanguard model of a multi-genre music institution for performance, community engagement, and arts advocacy; and was previously co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of the Bard Music Festival in New York.
A pianist of “heart, intellect and fabulous technical resources” (Fanfare), she has performed at Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Great Performers at Lincoln Center (New York), Barbican Centre (London), The Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Gilmore Piano Festival, 92nd Street Y, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Library of Congress, Van Cliburn Foundation, The Getty Museum, Ojai Festival and concert series across the United States. Recent world premieres include Vijay Iyer’s solo piano work, “For My Father;” written for Rothenberg, and Tyshawn Sorey’s MONOCHROMATIC LIGHT (AFTERLIFE), which was named by The New York Times and The New Yorker as one of the top ten classical performances of 2022, and was followed by 11 performances at New York’s Park Avenue Armory in a staging by director Peter Sellars with art of Julie Mehretu. Highlights in 2024-2025 include performances in Lisbon, Brussels and Paris with cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton of D’est en musique, created with filmmaker Chantal Akerman; Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas performed at Rothko Chapel; and performances in Los Angeles, New York, Washington and Houston of a major new piano work composed for Sarah by 2023 Pulitzer Prize winner Tyshawn Sorey.
Sarah Rothenberg is currently on the faculty of Columbia University’s Graduate Program in Writing. Formerly chair of the music department at Bard College, Sarah Rothenberg has taught at Rice University’s Moody Center for the Arts, been a Senior Fellow at the New School’s Vera List Center for Art and Politics in New York, and visiting artist-in-residence at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at University of Houston and Banff Centre for the Arts.
Program:
Vijay Iyer – For My Father (2021)
Tyshawn Sorey – For Julius Eastman (2024)