January 20 - Saint-Saëns Piano concerto No. 5; Foellinger Great Hall; Champaign Urbana, IL
January 21 - Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2; Foellinger Great Hall; Champaign Urbana, IL
January 22 - Liszt Piano Concerot No. 2; Symphony Center; Chicago, IL
January 23 - Saint-Saëns Piano concerto No. 5; Palm Desert, CA
January 25 - Saint-Saëns Piano concerto No. 5; San Diego, CA
January 26 - Saint-Saëns Piano concerto No. 5; Santa Barbara, CA
January 27 - Saint-Saëns Piano concerto No. 5; Davis, CA
January 28 - Liszt Piano Concerot No. 2; Berkeley, CA
January 29 - Saint-Saëns Piano concerto No. 5; Seattle, WA

On January 5-8, 2012, Thibaudet returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall. With Miguel Harth-Bedoya conducting, the orchestra will play Dvorak’s Hussite Overture and Symphony No. 3, “Organ” by Saint-Saens. Thibaudet will join for Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Thibaudet began this season with a series of striking summer appearances at Tanglewood in which he played the complete piano works of Ravel in a week. He then embarked on a European tour with Charles Dutoit and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Continuing his love of exploring individual composers, Thibaudet performed a program of Liszt lieder and Brahms lieder with mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager in Europe, Boston and New York. Thibaudet also tours Europe with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the U.S. with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, playing Saint-Saëns. After a performance with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on February 11, 2012, Thibaudet will conclude his season with Debussy recitals in Europe. These Debussy evenings celebrate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

On December 31, 2011, Jean-Yves Thibaudet will perform with the New York Philharmonic for its PBS-televised New Year’s Eve Gala. He will play the Gershwin Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue, works he recorded on his most recent album, “Gershwin”, for Decca. Both Concerto in F (arr. Ferde Grofé, 1928, for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra) and Rhapsody in Blue (arr. Ferde Grofé, 1924, for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra) are presented on this live recording with the Baltimore Symphony in their “jazz band” orchestrations, as opposed to the more familiar versions performed by traditional orchestras. “People ask if the piece is jazz, classical or both,” writes Thibaudet of Rhapsody in Blue, “but the underlying jazz element really belongs to this great work, and this Grofé orchestration gives the Gershwin piece the flavor that it should have.” Gershwin’s own orchestration of Variations on ‘I Got Rhythm’ completes the disc.

This winter, Thibaudet can be heard on the score of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which opens on December 25, 2011 in New York and Los Angeles, and in January 2012 nationwide. Director Stephen Daldry’s previous work includes The Hours, The Reader, and Billy Elliot. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was filmed and the score was recorded in New York City.

As part of the recording sessions, Thibaudet spent four days working closely with Daldry, composer Alexandre Desplat, and the production crew. “I loved working with Alexandre Desplat,” Thibaudet says. “He’s so much in control of everything: he knows exactly what he wants, which is both helpful and inspiring.” Thibaudet’s time in the studio involved painstakingly watching scenes from the movie in order to produce just the right musical atmosphere. The emotions of the music and images had to be in sync in order to create a perfect artistic unity.

Based on the critically-acclaimed novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close stars Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, and introduces young actor Thomas Horn. It tells the story of nine-year-old Oskar Schell, a precocious and sensitive Manhattanite. After Oskar’s father dies in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, Oskar set outs to find the meaning of a key he discovers in his father’s closet. His adventures will take him throughout the five boroughs as he meets a kaleidoscope of characters and searches for meaning in a healing city. Thibaudet describes the score: “You have to create an entire mood, feeling and atmosphere, with your music. You need to tell a story with your notes at the the piano. It’s a huge challenge, but I love doing it. The score has a great atmosphere.  The piano is a little bit the voice of Oskar, the boy, so it changes with his moods. It’s reflective and nostalgic - not sad, but moody. The music kind of hangs there, very quietly. I find it timeless and quite magical.”