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JONATHAN BISS, Piano Twenty-four-year-old American pianist Jonathan Biss has already proved himself an accomplished and exceptional musician with a flourishing international reputation through his orchestral and recital performances in North America and Europe. Noted for his intriguing programs, artistic maturity and versatility, Mr. Biss performs a diverse repertoire ranging from Mozart and Beethoven, through the Romantics to Janáček and Schoenberg as well as works by contemporary composers. In April, EMI Classics released Mr. Biss’s highly anticipated recording debut: a CD comprising Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 and two works by Ludwig van Beethoven—Fantasy in G minor, Op. 77 and Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 (Appassionata). The Los Angeles Times called Mr. Biss “a serious, accomplished artist who puts the composer before the player,” the San Francisco Chronicle said his debut CD is “brilliant,” and the Cleveland Plain Dealer remarked that this “recording is a clear signal that a master is emerging.” Mr. Biss has performed with most major U.S. orchestras, including the Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Boston Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and Seattle Symphony. This season, in addition to debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Phoenix Symphony, and the Saint Louis Symphony, Mr. Biss will make return engagements with orchestras throughout North America and Europe, including the Chicago Symphony under Leonard Slatkin, the Essen Philharmonic with Ilan Volkov, the Gulbenkian Orchestra under Jean-Claude Casadesus, the Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by Pinchas Zukerman, the National Arts Centre Orchestra with Lawrence Foster, and the Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Daniel Barenboim. He will also make his debut with Orpheus on a five-city tour that includes a concert at Carnegie Hall in February. An enthusiastic chamber musician, Mr. Biss participated in the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival this past summer and has added numerous chamber music performances to his 2004-05 schedule: several with the Mendelssohn String Quartet and duo recitals with violinist Miriam Fried in Washington, St. Paul, and in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. Biss will give recitals in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hannover, and Perugia in Europe and throughout the U.S. in cities that include Detroit, Philadelphia, Seattle, and New York at Zankel Hall in March. Mr. Biss made his New York recital debut at the 92nd Street Y’s Tisch Center for the Arts in 2000. Of his New York Philharmonic debut under Kurt Masur that same season, The New York Times wrote that Mr. Biss played with “assurance, intelligence and vitality.” Last season he made a return engagement with the New York Philharmonic in the orchestra’s “Beethoven Experience” series conducted by current music director, Lorin Maazel. Mr. Biss has given recitals at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in many other cities throughout the U.S. and Canada including Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, San Diego and Vancouver as well as at Caramoor and Ravinia. Abroad he has performed with the BBC Symphony, the BBC Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin, at the Verbier and Bad Kissingen Festivals, and has given recitals in London, Munich, Toulouse, Zurich, the Spoleto Festival in Italy, and at Klavier-Festival Ruhr in Germany. Among the many conductors with whom he has worked are Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, James Conlon, Charles Dutoit, James Levine, and Neville Marriner. Jonathan Biss represents the third generation in a family of professional musicians that includes his grandmother Raya Garbousova, one of the first well-known female cellists (for whom Samuel Barber composed his Cello Concerto), as well as his parents, violinist Miriam Fried and violist/violinist Paul Biss. Growing up surrounded by music, Mr. Biss began his piano studies at age six and his first musical collaborations were with his mother and father. Mr. Biss studied at Indiana University with Evelyne Brancart and at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Leon Fleisher. Mr. Biss was an artist-in-residence on NPR’s “Performance Today” and has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2002 Gilmore Young Artist Award, Wolf Trap’s Shouse Debut Artist Award, Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award, and the 2003 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. He was the first and only American chosen to participate in the BBC’s New Generation Artist program. |
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