Piano/organ Performances
As pianist and organist, Frey has performed with many symphony orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Munich Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (ORF), Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra), Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester, Rome Philharmonic Orchestra, the orchestra of the Teatro Regio di Torino (with whom he appeared as soloist in the 3 inaugural concerts opening Torino's newly restored opera house), the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Bohemian Symphony Orchestra (Prague), the chamber orchestra of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (the chamber orchestra of the opera house of Mexico City), Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana and Neues Barockorchester Berlin among others, under such conductors as Claudio Abbado, John Mauceri, Michael Tilson Thomas and Howard Shore.
He frequently played recitals with the renowned Grammy Award-winning tenor, Jerry Hadley. Frey has performed chamber music with violinist Ruggiero Ricci and the Vermeer Quartet, among others. In 1985, Ricci and Frey performed New York City's official concert commemorating the anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach, given in a sold-out Alice Tully Hall on the actual day of the composer's 300th birthday. He has performed duo concerts in Europe with American writer and A Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor.
Frey's annual schedule also includes worldwide recital tours. He was the first organist ever to perform an entire symphony of Gustav Mahler as a solo work for organ. This historic achievement resulted in Frey's live performance of the organ transcription Gustav Mahler's Symphony #5 (transcribed by Jerry Kinsella) being regarded as one of seven performances listed as "the most important organ-related events of the 20th century" by The American Organist magazine.
In Barrie Gavin's documentary film, Erich Wolfgang Korngold-Adventures of Wunderkind: A Portrait and Concert, Frey performs several solo keyboard works and the first public hearing of Korngold's second symphony, which exists only in a manuscript piano score. Most of the background piano music in the film is also taken from Frey's performances of the composer's music.
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Famous quotes containing the words piano, organ and/or performances:
“It is not always possible to predict the response of a doting Jewish mother. Witness the occasion on which the late piano virtuoso Oscar Levant telephoned his mother with some important news. He had proposed to his beloved and been accepted. Replied Mother Levant: “Good, Oscar, I’m happy to hear it. But did you practice today?””
—Liz Smith (20th century)
“But alas! I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises, that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“At one of the later performances you asked why they called it a “miracle,”
Since nothing ever happened. That, of course, was the miracle
But you wanted to know why so much action took on so much life
And still managed to remain itself, aloof, smiling and courteous.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)