https://damjanmusic.com/bio/
In addition to traditional repertory, pianist Robert Thies performs improvised music with flutist Damjan Krajacic. Among the highlights of Thies' career was a win at the Second International Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has toured widely as a soloist and chamber musician. Thies has made several recordings and was heard in 2024 on the album Danaë Xanthe Vlasse: Mythologies II.
Thies, who has sometimes performed under the name Robert Edward Thies, was born in Neptune, New Jersey, on February 10, 1971. His family moved to southern California before he turned three, and except for a stint in Colorado and some time in Europe as a young man, he has lived in the Los Angeles area continuously since then. His father worked for the Atlantic Richfield oil company, and his mother was a social worker. Thies attended the University of Southern California, earning bachelor's and master's degrees. His principal teachers were Daniel Pollack and Robert Turner, who had both been students of the teacher Rosina Lhevinne and the famed pianist Josef Lhevinne, stalwarts of the Russian piano school. It was in Russia that Thies scored a major breakthrough, winning the Gold Medal at the Second International Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg. He was the first American to win a first prize in a Russian piano competition since Van Cliburn in 1958, and as of the mid-2020s, also the most recent one. Thies made his recording debut in 2005 on the Centaur label, joining the New Hollywood String Quartet on a recording of Brahms' Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115, and the Sextet in C major for piano, violin, viola, cello, clarinet, and horn, Op. 37, of Ernst von Dohnányi. His solo debut came the following year with the self-issued album Live in Recital.
Thies has appeared internationally as a concerto soloist, with his résumé including performances with such groups as the Louisville Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Mexico City Philharmonic, and the Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand. As a recitalist, he has appeared at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, among many other venues. Thies is a frequent guest at summer festivals in the U.S., including those at Ravinia outside Chicago, Aspen, Colorado, and Sedona, Arizona. In 2003, he began an ongoing collaboration with flutist Damjan Krajacic, and the pair have released three improvisatory albums, Blue Landscapes I, II, and III. These have been classed as New Age music, but Thies rejects that term. Thies has also been heard on various film soundtracks, including that for Ghostbusters: Afterlife in 2021 and The Fabelmans (2022). He has performed on two albums of music by the composer Danaë Vlasse, Poème (2020) and Mythologies II (2024). Thies has taught at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. ~ James Manheim
