Chilly Gonzales is on everyone’s and especially the cyberpeople’s lips at the moment – thanks to two guys in robot costumes. So it didn’t come as a surprise that prior to his two London concerts last week, Cadogan Hall was filled with whisperings, if he would at least partly play his song from the forthcoming Daft Punk album. He did. And everyone with a Beethoven-esque brain could actually even hear it – with their mind’s ear. Since he only let his fingers silently touch the keys, which was visible for everyone via the giant screens under the rededicated church’s ceiling and stretching from one side of the stage to the other.

His first October-scheduled Lincoln Center show in New York was gone with the wind, or better: blown away by superstorm Sandy. Last Friday, it seemed the Weather God still hasn’t turned into a Chilly Gonzales fan. According to numerous tweets, people queued along the street for hours to see his two substitutional shows – in the pouring rain. It was an outpour of praise in the end which proves that it was obviously worth it.

Just imagine you were coeval with Händel or Mozart and wanted to listen to some music. You would only be able to choose from a selection of three possibilities at the most: go to a concert hall, make music yourself or in case you had the privilege of noble birth, enjoy it as part of the courtly cultural life. Fortunately, nowadays music is always available and repeatable. Still, it felt as if storage data devices haven’t been invented yet, when Chilly Gonzales played the Kölner Philharmonie on December 29th. He introduced so many new, yet unfortunately unpublished pieces that it was a real treat and indulgence, but at the same time evanescence and the knowledge of singularity were omnipresent. The Faustian verse “If to the moment I shall ever say: ‘Ah, linger on, thou art so fair!’” could have been the epigraph to this final concert in 2012. Or was it a pointer to the future and into the direction of “more orchestra”?

Two great concert reviews from Liverpool a.k.a. the “World Capital City of Pop”

Solo Piano II Tour in PianoVision
Toronto – Nov 8th, 2012 8:00PM
Winter Garden

Good concerts are fun to attend, and provide a few hours of entertainment along with some happy memories. Great concerts, on the other hand, can change you as a person.

October 20th 2012, Barbican Hall, London

The piano has become an instrument of the masses again. Thanks to one man, who brought the giant in black and white to life again: Chilly Gonzales. His recipe sounds simple: modification and adaptation. Instead of putting a good portion of pop into existing classical music and brewing a cheesy, unenjoyable pomp-chowder, he uses the rules of classical composition to create piano pearls in poplength and –structure.