“For my project, “The Mozart Nyman Concert”, I chose two tremendous and highly esteemed composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Michael Nyman. Both have accompanied and fascinated me since my youth. Mozart’s piano compositions occupy a large and important place in my repertoire, and over the many years since I first heard Michael Nyman’s “In Re Don Giovanni,” I have followed his musical work with great enthusiasm. It has long been my dream to connect the two composers in a special project. In 2021, for the occasion of my fiftieth birthday, I seek to fulfill this wish and have asked Michael Nyman, who is just as much an admirer of Mozart as I am, to compose six piano pieces directly related to Mozart’s piano sonatas. The classical and traditional form of the piano recital, in which we are accustomed to hearing entire works of one or more composers, continues to develop, and so I have conceived of a new and modern piano recital for myself. I have put together two “new,” three-movement sonatas from the first, second and third movements of six different Mozart sonatas and the c Minor Fantasy, each connected by one of Michael Nyman’s piano pieces. At the end, serving as an “encore,” are Mozart’s Twelve Variations, KV 265. The soundscapes of the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries are closely interwoven, the transitions between Mozart and Nyman are fluid, and a listening experience is created which makes the connection between antiquity and modernity a thrilling and innovative concert program for me.” – Sebastian Knauer