Dubois Competition Guest Artist: Greg Anderson, piano

Mosaic Variations

by Greg Anderson

The 23-minute Mosaic Variations are built upon a century of musical responses to Mozart’s “Là ci darem la mano.” Drawing from nearly ten hours of variations, fantasies, paraphrases, and potpourris, the piece gathers 35 composers at the same roundtable to celebrate the duet’s allure and debate its themes of seduction and desire. Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt are seated beside Paganini, Czerny and Helene Liebmann—along with two dozen others—to offer their most distinctive musical ideas, interrupting, answering, and overlapping one another in a cross-century conversation.

The Mosaic Variations challenges conventional notions of the solitary musical genius by uniting these scattered voices. Here we find a group of creative individuals circulating ideas across generations, reshaping and even stealing from each other. Yet we also find lightning bolts of invention from all, with single flashes from overlooked composers shining just as brightly as those from the greats. This piece sets these inspired moments back-to-back to reveal creativity as a cumulative human inheritance. August Klengel’s astonishing, nearly forgotten fugue crowns the work and becomes its natural metaphor, its independent musical voices converging into a dramatic arc far richer than any on their own.

Note: Composers are listed in the order their music enters each movement, with dates indicating their source work’s likely year of composition.

Overture — Carl Czerny (1829), Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1817), August Alexander Klengel (1821), Frédéric Chopin (1827), Sigismond Thalberg (c.1836), Franz Liszt (1877)

Duettino — Niccolò Paganini (c.1820), Renaud de Vilbac (1874), Franz Liszt (1841), R. P. Cramer (1878), Ludwig van Beethoven (1795), August Eberhard Müller (c.1790), Frédéric Chopin (1827), Sigismond Thalberg (c.1853), Jean-Baptiste Duvernoy (1867)

Variation I: Duplets — Hélène Liebmann (1806), Nicolas Baldenecker (c.1820), Charles-Auguste de Bériot & Benoit Constant Fauconier (1854), August Eberhard Müller (c.1790), Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1817), Renaud de Vilbac (1874), Ludwig van Beethoven (1795), Joseph Gelinek (1789), Carl Czerny (1829)

Variation II: Triplets — Ludwig van Beethoven (1795), Joseph Gelinek (1789), August Eberhard Müller (c.1790), Franz Liszt (1841), Frédéric Chopin (1827), Henri Maylath (1871)

Variation III: Quadruplets — Franz Ignaz Danzi (c.1818), Frédéric Chopin (1827), Ludwig van Beethoven (1795), Nicolas Baldenecker (c.1820), Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński (1847), Bartolomeo Campagnoli (c.1800), Joseph Gelinek (1789), Bernhard Romberg (1815), Robert Nicolas-Charles Bochsa (c.1832), Jean-Delphin Alard (1850), Henri Vieuxtemps & Édouard Wolff (c.1845), Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1817), Charles-Auguste de Bériot & Benoit Constant Fauconier (1854)

Variation IV: Slow, major — Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1817), Nicolas Baldenecker (c. 1820), Sigismond Thalberg (c. 1836), Bartolomeo Campagnoli (c. 1800), Jean-Delphin Alard (1850), Emma Maria Macfarren (c. 1858)

Variation V: Slow, minor — Hélène Liebmann (1806), Carlo Michele Alessio Sola (c.1830), Ludwig van Beethoven (1795), Nicolas Baldenecker (c.1820), Frédéric Chopin (1827), Johann Bobrowicz (1832)

Variation VI: Feats & Flourishes — Emma Maria Macfarren (c. 1858), August Eberhard Müller (c. 1790), Joseph Gelinek (1789), Ludwig van Beethoven (1795), Jean-Delphin Alard (1850), Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński (1847), Frédéric Chopin (1827), Franz Liszt (1841 & 1877), Hélène Liebmann (1806), Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1817), Ignace Xavier Joseph Leybach (1866), Francesco Calegari (c.1825), Johann Kaspar Mertz (1851), Carl Czerny (1829)

Finale: Stretta & Fugue — Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1817), Franz Liszt (1841 & 1877), Nicolas Baldenecker (c. 1820), Emma Maria Macfarren (c. 1858), Théodore Oesten (c. 1850), Ludwig van Beethoven (1795), August Alexander Klengel (1821), August Eberhard Müller (c. 1790), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1782), Sigismond Thalberg (c.1836)

In pursuit of his mission to make classical music a relevant and powerful force in society, Greg Anderson has developed a multi-faceted career as a pianist, composer, and filmmaker. Today Greg is an internationally renowned concert pianist with live tours reaching four continents and 24 countries, 30+ million music video views, daily radio plays, and over a thousand performances of his compositions every year. His intuitively creative approach and ability to connect with the next generation have attracted the attention of such media outlets as PBS, MTV, the BBC, and the Today Show. He is profiled in Nick Romeo’s Driven, and he has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today, All Things Considered,and A Prairie Home Companion, as well as Pianist, Gramophone, and Listen magazines. 

For over two decades, Greg has performed in collaboration with Elizabeth Joy Roe as the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo, noted as “the most dynamic duo of this generation” (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “the very model of complete 21st-century musicians” (The Washington Post). Their five critically acclaimed albums on the Universal and Steinway record labels have spent over a dozen weeks at the top of the Billboard Classical Charts.

Greg has toured extensively while performing as a soloist, duo pianist, and chamber musician with performances at NYC’s Carnegie and David Geffen halls, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, Munich’s Hercules Hall, Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, and the Seoul Arts Center. He has appeared at the Gilmore and Gina Bachauer International Piano Festivals, Cliburn Concerts, and dozens of summer music festivals, including the Great Mountains, Santa Fe, Grand Teton, Aspen, Mostly Mozart, and Styriarte festivals. His orchestral engagements include appearances with the orchestras of San Francisco, Vancouver, Calgary, St. Paul, Chicago, Rochester, Liverpool, and others.

Greg is recognized as a leader on the advancement of classical music and attracting new audiences. He has served as host of NPR’s From the Top and the must-watch Cliburn International Piano Competition webcasts, interviewing performers and providing commentary and insight for millions of viewers worldwide. Greg has been invited to present as the keynote artist at numerous music teacher conventions, including the 2013 MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) national convention, and international leader symposiums such as EG (Entertainment Gathering), the Imagine Solutions Conference, Chicago Ideas Week, and Mexico’s Ciudad de las Ideas.

In alignment with his mission, Greg is a passionate advocate for community engagement. He has interacted with more than 100,000 students in person, and his mission flourishes online where his reach is even more vast. He personally engages with 75,000 social media followers, and he has produced, directed, and edited 70+ music videos with the aim to excite and energize young musicians. With an Emmy nomination, premieres at international film festivals, and millions of views on YouTube, his music videos have been influential in shaping the 21^st-century classical music video genre.

Greg’s 100+ compositions and arrangements are featured on the Universal, Sony, EMI, and Steinway record labels and are frequently performed by concert pianists, major orchestras, and amateurs alike. As the Northwest Reverb argued, his music makes “a strong case that playing piano is the most fun thing that two people could ever do together.” His works are published by Alfred Music on the “Anderson & Roe Duos & Duets Series” and his own publishing company, Awkward Fermata Press.

Greg received his Doctorate and Master of Musical Arts degrees from Yale University and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where one of his performances was handpicked to appear on the Sounds of Juilliard CD celebrating the school’s centenary. Greg is a Steinway artist.

gregandersonpiano.com & andersonroe.com

Brazilian pianist Lorenzo Rambo dos Santos is currently a sophomore performance major at the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University, where he studies under the guidance of Dr. Solungga Liu. Since beginning his formal piano studies in 2020 through the Extension Program of the Department of Music at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Lorenzo has enjoyed performing frequently in solo, collaborative, and chamber settings.

Lorenzo has received awards in competitions in both Brazil and the United States, including a recent first-place win in the 2025 BGSU Concerto Competition (Undergraduate Division). As a result, he will perform the first movement Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor with the BG Philharmonia on February 14, 2026.