{"id":64289,"date":"2023-07-18T15:56:29","date_gmt":"2023-07-18T15:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=64289"},"modified":"2023-08-13T02:47:43","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T02:47:43","slug":"andre-watts-pioneering-piano-virtuoso-dies-at-77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=64289","title":{"rendered":"Andr\u00e9 Watts, Pioneering Piano Virtuoso, Dies at 77"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andr\u00e9 Watts, Pioneering Piano Virtuoso, Dies at 77<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2023-07-14<\/p>\n

Javier C. Hern\u00e1ndez<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
The pianist Andr\u00e9 Watts<\/a> at his home in Manhattan<\/a> in 1968. \u201cThere\u2019s something beautiful about having an entire audience hanging on a single note,\u201d he once said.
\nNeal Boenzi\/The New York Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the first Black superstars in classical music, he awed audiences with his charisma and his technical powers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Watts<\/a>, a pianist whose mighty technique and magnetic charm awed audiences and made him one of the first Black superstars in classical music, died on Wednesday at his home in Bloomington, Ind. He was 77.<\/p>\n

The cause was prostate cancer, said his wife, Joan Brand Watts.<\/p>\n

Mr. Watts was an old-world virtuoso \u2014 his idol was the composer and showman Franz Liszt \u2014 with a knack for electricity and emotion. He sometimes hummed, stomped his feet and bobbed his head while he played, and some critics faulted him for excess. But his charisma and his technical powers were unquestioned, which helped fuel his rise to the world\u2019s top concert halls.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy greatest satisfaction is performing,\u201d Mr. Watts told The New York Times in 1971, when he was 25. \u201cThe ego is a big part of it, but far from all. Performing is my way of being part of humanity \u2014 of sharing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something beautiful,\u201d he added, \u201cabout having an entire audience hanging on a single note.\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr. Watts, whose father was Black and whose mother was white, was a rarity in a field where musicians of color have long been underrepresented. While he preferred not to speak about race, he was celebrated as a pioneer who defied stereotypes about classical music and helped open doors for aspiring artists of color…<\/p>\n

Read the entire obituary here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the first Black superstars in classical music, he awed audiences with his charisma and his technical powers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,1245,8,20],"tags":[33807,33808,33809,1392,2640,2327],"class_list":["post-64289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-biography","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-andre-watts","tag-javier-c-hernandez-2","tag-joan-brand-watts","tag-music","tag-new-york-times","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64289"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64301,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64289\/revisions\/64301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}