Sunday, the Alexander String Quartet closes out the 30th Anniversary Season of Music at Kohl Mansion with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott! Find out a little about Anne-Marie below in a wonderful profile by the Cincinnati Enquirer‘s Janelle Gelfand:
She’s won major awards. She made her Carnegie Hall debut at age 12. She’s recorded complete works of Prokofiev, Bach and Gershwin. And she’s been on the A-list of concert lineups, from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to Spoleto USA.
What you may not know about Anne-Marie McDermott is her unconventional route to a high-profile career.
“I feel fortunate that my career has this combination of lots of chamber music, which is so close to my heart, and orchestral dates, and my other great passion, playing recital programs,” McDermott says. “I try to figure out what projects do I want to focus on that really matter a lot to me. Because when something matters to you, that’s when you really shine.”
McDermott is soloist in works by Clara and Robert Schumann to open the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra season on Sunday in Memorial Hall and Anderson Center.
McDermott’s musical palette is broad and her schedule is dizzying. She’s just performed Beethoven’s “Triple” Concerto with violinist Chee-Yun and cellist Lynn Harrell with the Dallas Symphony.
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McDermott was born in Queens and raised in Long Island, where she and her siblings were partly home-schooled by her mother, a former Irish step dancer. She was taken to her first concert when she was 5.
“I remember this shining black instrument onstage with a spotlight on it. I have learned since then that it’s not glamorous, but at that age, it was how powerful it was, how glamorous it was,” she says.
When she and her sister, a violinist, became serious about music at age 9, her mother negotiated with the Catholic schools diocese to allow them to be home part of the day.
“What I wanted to do was play the piano. I devoted the rest of the day to practicing,” McDermott says.
She played her first Beethoven “Triple” Concerto at home, with her sisters. (Her sister Kerry is now a violinist in the New York Philharmonic.) At 12, she played the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto in Carnegie Hall…
Read the full profile, and find out more on Anne-Marie McDermott’s website!