Anthony de Mare is recognized throughout the world as a dedicated champion of the music of our time. Hailed by the New York Times for his “muscularly virtuosic” and “eloquently warm” style, he is a driving force in the development of musical events that redefine the concert experience in today’s ever-changing artistic world. Beyond his command of the keyboard, he is acclaimed for his pioneering achievements in concert theater for the piano. He has moved and inspired a generation of pianists and audiences, revealing profound personal resonances within the numerous text-based multi-media works created for him.
Before Professor de Mare's notable Carnegie Hall debut, he was awarded First Prize and Audience Prize at the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition (The Netherlands) and the International Competition of Contemporary Piano Music (France). He has also received numerous grants for his projects from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Greenwall Foundation, The Promise of Learnings, Inc. and the Mary Cary Flagler Charitable Trust, among others, and was the first performer invited for residency at the Djerassi Foundation (Woodside, California). He has been nominated twice for the Gay and Lesbian American Music Award. Supporting new work by composers of all generations and styles has been central to his career, and he has commissioned and collaborated with many of our most esteemed composers, including Frederic Rzewski, Meredith Monk, Fred Hersch, David Del Tredici, Paul Moravec, Jerome Kitzke, Donald Martino, Michael Gordon, Aaron Jay Kernis, John Zorn, Eve Beglarian and James Mobberley.
A Yamaha Artist, Professor de Mare has nearly twenty recordings in his discography, reflecting a repertoire that spans the traditional, modern and interdisciplinary. For his 2005 Koch Entertainment release Out of My Hands, American Record Guide wrote, "his exquisite touch and impassioned beauty of utterance imbue this program of vignettes by David del Tredici and Aaron Jay Kernis with artistry of the highest order.” In addition, American Record Guide named Professor de Mare's recording, Wizards and Wildmen: Piano Music of Charles Ives, Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison (CRI /New World), one of 2000’s ten best releases, bringing together three revolutionaries of American music. Other acclaimed recordings include: Pianos and Voices: Music by John Cage and Meredith Monk, an unprecedented pairing of these two mavericks of the American avant garde (Koch), Frederic Rzewski - Anthony de Mare (O.O. Discs), featuring the groundbreaking “De Profundis” composed for Professor de Mare, and Oblivion, recorded with cellist Maya Beiser (Koch).
In 2001, Professor de Mare premiered his one-man-show Playing With MySelf, a personal and provocative synthesis of piano performance, theater, autobiography, and even dance, in a sold-out run at HERE Arts Center (New York). His music video Double Fiesta, created with video artist Anney Bonney to music by Meredith Monk, has been featured in film festivals around the world.
Among performances spanning five continents, Professor de Mare has been featured at the New York Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center series, the Bang on a Can Marathon, WNYC's "New Sounds Live," the International Bergen and Ultima Festivals (Norway), Mardi Gras Festival (Sydney), "Music In The Morning" (Vancouver), Festival de Musica Latinoamericano (Caracas), the Kennedy Center, Cleveland Museum of Art, Huddersfield Festival (Yorkshire), and Almeida Festival (London). As concerto soloist, he has appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Essen Philharmonic, Minneapolis Chamber Symphony and the New Hampshire Symphony, among others.
Anthony de Mare recently began a national tour, with pianist Steven Mayer, of The American Piano, a presentation conceived by scholar Joseph Horowitz to include concerts, lectures and master classes. His teachers included Yvar Mikhashoff, Isabelle Yalkovsky Byman, Leo Smit and Paul Jacobs.