Thomas Sauer

American pianist Thomas Sauer performs regularly as soloist, chamber musician, and recital partner. His large and varied repertoire encompasses Bach to the present day and includes both staples and neglected masterworks. Audiences and critics alike praise his playing for its clarity, expressivity, and assured stylistic sense. Some of Mr. Sauer’s recent solo appearances include concertos with the Quad-City and Tallahassee Symphonies and the Greenwich Village Orchestra, and recitals at Mannes College, Merkin Concert Hall, Rockefeller University, St. John’s College, Oxford, and Vassar College. In the spring of 2009, he appeared on Broadway as the pianist in 33 Variations, a play about the composition of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. With his long-time duo partner, English cellist Colin Carr, Mr. Sauer has appeared at the Wigmore Hall (London), Holywell Music Room (Oxford), the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Musikgebouw, Bargemusic (New York City), the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), and Princeton University, among many other venues. Other duo recitals include violinists Midori (Berlin Philharmonie and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels) and Jennifer Koh (Kennedy Center).

Among Mr. Sauer’s numerous chamber music appearances are performances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society; performances with members of the Juilliard String Quartet at the Library of Congress; and numerous concerts with the Brentano String Quartet (including piano quintets by Schumann, Brahms, Franck, and Carter). Mr. Sauer has performed at many of the leading festivals in the United States and abroad, including Marlboro, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Northwest, El Paso Pro Musica, and the Chamber Music Festivals of Seattle, Taos, Four Seasons (North Carolina), Portland, and Salt Bay (Maine); as well as Lake District Summer Music (England) and Festival des Consonances (France).

A committed teacher, with students at Vassar as well as Mannes College in New York, Mr. Sauer was the founder and director of the Mannes Beethoven Institute, a highly-regarded week-long summer training program that ran for fifteen seasons in New York. A graduate of the Curtis Institute, Mannes College of Music, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, his major teachers included Jorge Bolet, Edward Aldwell, and Carl Schachter.