Hailed as “a poet of the piano” (Bachtrack), Pavel Kolesnikov is celebrated for his imaginative, thought-provoking programming which offers the listener a fresh, often unexpected perspective on familiar pieces. He brings this inventive spirit to the Armory with two distinct programs that poetically showcase his sensitivity, musicality, and sheer mastery of the instrument. He opens his residency with one of the most challenging works for a pianist—Bach’s towering classical keyboard masterpiece the Goldberg Variations—and then looks upward with a program of works by Scarlatti, Chopin, Scriabin, Messiaen, and others theatrically curated in an homage to artist Joseph Cornell’s orrery Celestial Navigation, which invokes the myths, images, and theories once used to explain the predictable yet baffling patterns of the night sky.

Monday, May 22: Bach’s Goldberg Variations
Wednesday, May 24: Celestial Navigation (After Joseph Cornell)