🎧 Grammy-nominated pianist Adam Tendler returns home to Barre Opera House

Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, in partnership with Vermont Public

BARRE — Adam Tendler learned how to play the piano as a kid growing up in Barre. His first recitals and first paid performance were at the Barre Opera House. 

Since then, Tendler’s music has gone on to earn international acclaim. His recent album, “Inheritances,” was just nominated for a Grammy in the category Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

On Sunday, November 16, Tendler will be back in Barre for a homecoming concert. He’s performing “Inheritances” at the Barre Opera House. 

The story of “Inheritances” starts in late 2019, when Tendler’s father passed away unexpectedly. 

At the time, he and his father weren’t communicating all that much. 

“We had just kind of grown apart, I suppose,” Tendler said. “And so there was this grief for what could have been.” 

A few months later, Tendler found out his father had left him an inheritance. 

“It was cash. A wad of cash,” he said. “My stepmother told me about it.”

He and his stepmother decided to meet at a Denny’s on the Vermont/New Hampshire border. 

“She kind of slipped me this envelope,” he said. 

It was enough for a couple months of his Brooklyn rent. 

“For several months, I just kind of sat with it,” he said. “I was just thinking, ‘What should I do with this? What could honor the gesture of receiving this inheritance?’” 

Then, one night, Tendler was at a concert in Brooklyn. Sitting by himself in the balcony, he was moved by the music.

“It reminded me, like, this is what I do for a living. I try to create musical experiences for people to have exactly what I’m experiencing right now, which is this powerful, emotional, cathartic response,” he said. “I realized, this is how I can actually live with this memory and process this grief.”

Tendler knew what to do with his inheritance. 

He reached out to his musician friends, including Laurie Anderson, Missy Mazzoli, Pamela Z, Nico Muhly, Devonté Hynes, and Scott Wollschleger. He commissioned each musician — 16 in total — to compose a short solo piano piece on the theme “inheritance.” 

Tendler performs the pieces, and the result is the album “Inheritances,” released last December with New Amsterdam Records. 

Tendler wasn’t interested in the pieces being about his relationship with his dad. Instead, he hoped each composer would use the assignment to reflect on their own experiences with grief. 

Still, composer Scott Wollschleger needed some guidance. He reached out to Tendler. 

“He asked me if I would like to answer some questions about my dad. And I really, frankly, didn’t want to,” Tendler said. “But I wasn’t going to refuse. And so I was like, ‘Well, if I’m gonna answer these questions, I’m gonna go hard.’” 

He spent several weeks answering a list of questions. He wrote 20 pages in a Google Doc.

“It was sort of like, ‘You asked for it, so here it is,’” he said.

He sent the document to Wollschleger. And he figured if he was sending it to one composer, he might as well send it to everyone. 

It was vulnerable. 

“Everyone read it, which was crazy to me, because it had some really personal childhood memories and family secrets and stuff like that,” he said. “But it triggered memories for them, and triggered their own inspiration. So you can see traces of that document throughout this album.” 

Take, for example, Laurie Anderson’s piece, “Remember, I Created You.” Tendler’s dad said that to him after a concert. 

🎧 LISTEN: “Remember, I Created You” composed by Laurie Anderson

And “The Plum Tree I Planted Still There,” by Sarah Kirkland Snider. 

“That comes from that document,” Tendler said. “It’s about seeing relics of my childhood, including a plum tree that I’d planted as a kid.” 

🎧 LISTEN: “The Plum Tree I Planted Still There” composed by Sarah Kirkland Snider

All the text from Darian Donovan Thomas’ piece, “We Don’t Need to Tend This Garden, They’re Wildflowers,” is from the document, too. 

“There’s a part in the piece that mentions a waterfall that is on a trail behind a pizza place that isn’t there anymore,” Tendler said. “That pizza place is called Jockey Hollow. Everyone in Barre knows Jockey Hollow. My musical memories are definitely tied up in that town.” 

🎧 LISTEN: “We Don’t Need to Tend This Garden, They’re Wildflowers” composed by Darian Donovan Thomas

Tendler says, bit by bit, he’s seen parts of his hometown disappear. 

“Sometimes things go away, and there’s nothing that replaces them,” he said. “They become empty storefronts.” 

And, he said, that can bring a sense of grief, too. 

“Grief doesn’t have to be about death,” he said. “It can also be about change.” 

Tendler’s concert at the Barre Opera House is presented by TURNmusic, a Waterbury nonprofit performing arts organization where Tendler is a board member. 

Anne Decker is TURNmusic’s founder and director. And she was Tendler’s music theory teacher during his senior year at Spaulding High School. 

“I’m like, emotional immediately,” she said about the upcoming concert. “This is where Adam grew up. This is the opera house where he had his recitals.”

Decker said the goal of TURNmusic is “to showcase people who are writing original music and those artists who are performing it.”

The songs on “Inheritances” are intimate and innovative. Decker said she’s inspired by Tendler’s ability to be vulnerable and take risks.

“I just want to, like, shout on every corner that this guy is a big deal, and he’s coming home to do this thing.”

Adam Tendler will perform “Inheritances” at the Barre Opera House on Sunday, November 16 at 2 p.m. The first 100 youth tickets are free. Concert-goers can meet Tendler at a Q&A at noon, and there will be an informal reception after the show at Pearl Street Pizza.