James Tocco
(b. 1943 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American concert pianist. He is the youngest of thirteen children born to Vincenzo and Rose Tocco, both Sicilian immigrants.
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JAMES TOCCO TICKETS
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Early life
Born of Sicilian immigrant parents in
Detroit, Mr. Tocco’s love of music -especially opera—began in early childhood. At six years old he began studying piano and at twelve he made his orchestral debut, performing Beethoven’s Second
Piano Concerto. He won a scholarship to the Salzburg Mozarteum and a French government grant to study with Magda Tagliaferro in Paris. His
classical music education was completed with
Claudio Arrau in New York. Soon afterward, he became more prominent with his first-prize victory in the
ARD International Music Competition in Munich, followed being a replacement for
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli as guest soloist for the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto at the
Vienna Festival.
Career
In the years since then he has concertized internationally, throughout North and South America, Europe,
the Soviet Union, Japan, Australia,
South Africa, and
the Middle East. His orchestral engagements include:
- Cleveland and Minnesota orchestras;
- Berlin Philharmonic
- London Philharmonic
- Hong Kong and Munich philharmonics
- London, Houston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, New World, National, and NHK (Japan) symphonies.
Conductors
Conductors with whom he has collaborated include
- Marin Alsop
- David Atherton
- Esa-Pekka Salonen
- Jesús Lopez-Cobos
- Andrew Litton
- Yoav Talmi
- Robert Shaw, Yoel Levi, Zdenek Macal, and many others.
Musical Performance
Mr. Tocco is a recitalist, orchestral soloist, chamber musician, and educator. He has performed many American and European masterworks, including Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety, which he recorded with
Leonard Slatkin and
the BBC London Symphony Orchestra, and the Corigliano Piano Concerto.
The pianist’s performances included his
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra debut, performing the MacDowell Concerto and Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue, both conducted by Leonard Slatkin. An especially accomplished recitalist, Mr. Tocco has performed interpretations of Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt, as well as 20th-century composers, and he regularly programs the keyboard works of Handel. Other performances include Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety with
Marin Alsop and the New York Symphony, and Leonard Slatkin and the BBC London Symphony.
Discography
Mr. Tocco’s discography includes:
- Bernstein’s complete solo piano music
- Solo piano version of the Suite from Rodeo
- The complete Chopin Préludes
- The complete piano music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes
- Erwin Schulhof’s Cinq Etudes de Jazz
- Bach-Liszt organ transcriptions
- Four piano sonatas of Edward MacDowell.
Recently, he performed a recording of Corigliano’s Etude-Fantasy on
Sony Classical.
Educational Work
In addition to his itinerary, Mr. Tocco is Eminent Scholar/Artist in Residence at the University of Cincinnati College-Concervatory of Music, a faculty member at the
Manhattan School of Music and professor of piano at the
Musikhochschule in
Lübeck, Germany. Mr. Tocco is also the artistic director of the Great Lakes
Chamber Music Festival in
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
References