Thomas Sauer

Pianist Thomas Sauer is highly sought after as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher.  Some of Mr. Sauer’s recent appearances include concerto performances with the Quad-City and Tallahassee Symphonies and the Greenwich Village Orchestra; solo performances at Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium), Merkin Concert Hall, Rockefeller University, and St. John’s College, Oxford; appearances on Broadway as the pianist in 33 Variations, a play about the composition of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations; and performances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.  With his long-time duo partner 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 appearances include recitals with Midori at the Philharmonie in Berlin and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels; performances with members of the Juilliard String Quartet at the Library of Congress in Washington DC; and numerous concerts with the Brentano String Quartet.

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).  

Mr. Sauer’s varied discography includes recordings of Beethoven and Haydn piano sonatas for MSR Classics; the complete cello and piano works of Mendelssohn with Colin Carr on Cello Classics; a disc of Hindemith sonatas with violist Misha Amory (Musical Heritage Society); music of Britten and Schnittke with cellist Wilhelmina Smith on Arabesque; music of Ross Lee Finney with violinist Miranda Cuckson on Centaur Records; and violin sonatas of Mozart with Aaron Berofsky on Blue Griffin Recordings. James Matheson represents Sauer’s debut on the Yarlung Label.  

In recent seasons, Mr. Sauer has premiered works by Philippe Bodin, Robert Cuckson, Sebastian Currier, Keith Fitch, David Loeb, Donald Martino, and David Tcimpidis.

A member of the music faculty of Vassar College and the piano faculty of the Mannes College, Mr. Sauer is the founder and director of the Mannes Beethoven Institute.  His major teachers included Jorge Bolet, Edward Aldwell, and Carl Schachter.

Photo: Cooper Bates