One of his generation’s extraordinary talents, Dan Tepfer has earned an international reputation as a pianist-composer of wide-ranging innovation, individuality, and drive—one “who refuses to set himself limits” (France’s Télérama). The New York City-based Tepfer, born in 1982 in Paris to American parents, has recorded and performed around the world with some of the leading lights in jazz and classical music, from Lee Konitz to Renée Fleming, and released eleven albums of his own in solo, duo and trio formats.
Tepfer returns to Ravinia this summer, bringing his latest project, Natural Machines. An exploration of the musical intersection between natural and mechanical processes, Tepfer combines his own free improvisation at the piano with a specially programmed automated piano, allowing the piano’s computer programming to interact with him in real time.
This exploratory work examines all the intersections of the spiritual and the algorithmic, the art of science and the science of art. Speaking on this intersection, Tepfer shares “Good music, like good architecture, has strong structure. It’s what keeps it from falling apart. So whereas the surface of music is often above all emotional / spiritual, in the best music this surface is supported by logical systems, of varying kinds; this is what gives the surface a feeling of depth and stability.” The result is a one-of-a-kind performance where human creativity and machine intelligence engage in a fascinating dialogue, blurring the lines between improvisation and composition in ways never before possible.
