Thomas Kotcheff

Fixed/Flexible

Thomas Kotcheff presents an evening exploring the intersection of virtuosity, technology, and musical transformation through works that reimagine the piano as both a rhythmic engine and an evolving collaborator. The program features Kotcheff’s original multi-tracked piano arrangements of Anna Meredith‘s Bumps Per Minute (18 Studies for Dodgems) and FIBS, transforming Meredith’s propulsive electronic sound world into intricate performances by a single pianist multiplied through studio recording.

The concert also includes the world premiere of a new Piano Spheres commission by Christopher Rountree. In Piano and Tape, Rountree upends the traditional relationship between performer and fixed media, treating tape not as a predetermined accompaniment but as an unpredictable creative partner. The work explores chance, memory, and improvisatory decision-making, inviting the pianist into a continuously shifting dialogue between permanence and spontaneity. Together these works examine how technology can both expand and challenge musical performance, blurring the line between the human and the mechanical, the fixed and the flexible.

Thomas Kotcheff is composer and pianist whose music has been praised as “truly beautiful and inspired” (icareifyoulisten) and “explosive” (Gramophone) and has dedicated himself to commissioning and premiering new piano works. In 2020, Thomas released the world premiere recording of Frederic Rzewski’s 75-minute solo piano work Songs of Insurrection, and his 2024 album Re/Sounding: An American Songbook for Piano is a collaboration with composer Jordan Nelson. His work as a composer includes contributions to major film scores, most notably composing and orchestrating music for Oppenheimer, with additional film credits including Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Haunted Mansion, Origin, Bob Marley: One Love, Eddington, and The Wild Robot among others.