There are pianists, and then there is Jeremy Denk. One of America's foremost pianists, hailed by the New York Times as “a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs” — celebrated for performances of vast imagination, beauty, profundity, and wit — Denk is also a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, an Avery Fisher Prize winner, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a New York Times bestselling author. His program for this afternoon is a masterclass in how a great pianist thinks: Bach's luminous Prelude and Fugue in B Major from Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier opens the door, followed by Unsuk Chin's Six Études — ferociously demanding, kaleidoscopic works that test the limits of the instrument — and Beethoven's penultimate sonata, Op. 110, with its extraordinary final fugue. After intermission, a discovery: Études by Hélène de Montgeroult, the visionary French composer and pianist whose music anticipates Chopin and Liszt by decades and who is only now receiving the attention she deserves. The afternoon closes with Beethoven's last sonata, Op. 111 — two movements that contain, somehow, everything.

The Sekhri Piano Series brings world-renowned pianists and future stars to perform solo recitals on Noe Music’s Steinway Model D grand piano in the intimacy of the Noe Valley Ministry. The series is endowed by brothers Neil and Paul Sekhri in memory of their mother Betty — a devoted Noe Music patron whose love of the piano shaped a lifetime of listening.