Princeton University Concerts

About the Artist

Talk about a real-life fairytale: they met at a German castle, fell in (musical) love, and made music together happily ever after. The collaboration between tenor Ian Bostridge and jazz legend Brad Mehldau is a groundbreaking moment in music history—both artists are unmatched in the musical spheres they inhabit. Bostridge’s many recordings have garnered all the major international record prizes, including 15 GRAMMY nominations; his artistry has been honored by a CBE from the Queen Elizabeth II of England. Mehldau’s genius has been compared to that of J.S. Bach—considered to be the most influential jazz pianist of our time, he is revered for his jaw-dropping skill as an improviser and composer. With a trans-genre style, Mehldau is no stranger to collaborating with classical song icons, having been commissioned by Carnegie Hall to write song cycles for sopranos Renée Fleming and Anne Sofie von Otter. His newest song cycle is a meditation on desire, with lyrics from the poetry of Shakespeare, e.e. cummings, Brecht, Yeats, Goethe, Blake, and others—a most fitting counterpart to Schumann’s yearning Dichterliebe (“A Poet’s Love”), and to a program in which two of music’s greatest stars come to us as poets of love.