NPR: Performance Today -- Pianist Jonathan Biss

The young American pianist Jonathan Biss has already established an international reputation with performances in Canada, Finland, Germany, Israel and Italy, as well as throughout the United States. His exceptional promise was recognzed with an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1999. He has also received Wolf Trap's Shouse Debut Artist award, presented to him in 1997 by Isaac Stern, with whom he appeared in a recital program at Wolf Trap.

Mr. Biss' summer schedule in 2001 features returns to the Bard and Bravo! Vail Valley music festival, as well as a series of chamber music performances in Vancouver. Highlights of his 2001-02 season include appearances with the San Francisco Symphony, the National Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under James Levine. He will also give recitals in Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Toulouse, France, and will begin his second season as a member of Chamber Music Society Two, the pretigious emerging artists program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He made his subscription concert debut on the Society's main series in December 2000 and will embark on a national tour with the Society this season.

"That Biss is deeply musical, interpretively principled and technically secure (never ostentatious) makes him an exceptional pianist for any age group. It's unavoidable that the knock of stardom will be heard at his door."

The Washington Post

During 2000-01 season, Mr. Biss made his New York Philharmonic debut, performing Beethoven's Choral Fantasy under Kurt Masur, and returned to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Other highlights included recitals in Philadelphia and Minneapolis; a special 80th birthday celebration for Isaac Stern at the Kennedy Center, for which Mr. Biss joined Mr. Stern and members of the Emerson Quartet to premiere a quintet by William Bolcom; and a performance at Alice Tully Hall as part of the Bard Music Festival on "Beethoven and His World." His summer schedule in 2000 featured appearances with the Baltimore Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra, as well as a performance at the Chautauqua Festival with Midori of the newly reconstructed Mozart Concerto for Piano and Violin, K. 315f. He also participated in the Spoleto Festival in Italy, the Davos Music Festival in Switzerland and the Seattle Chamber Music Festival.

Other recent career highlights for Mr. Biss have included successful debuts with the National Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra (autumn 1999), and the orchestras of Baltimore, Buffalo, Rochester and Seattle (1998-99 season). He also joined the New York String Orchestra led by Jaime Laredo for a concert at Carnegie Hall in December 1999. He made his New York recital debut at the 92nd Street Y's Tisch Center for the Arts in April 2000 and has also given recitals on the winter series of Caramoor and Ravinia, as well as in Boston, Cincinnati, San Diego (the La Jolla Chamber Music Society) and Vancouver. He won acclaim for his playing in an all-Corigliano program at the 92nd Street Y and a Leon Kirchner program at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. Mr. Biss has been a frequent participant in the Marlboro Music Festival and has toured with "Musicians from Marlboro" on several occasions. He joined in the 50th anniversary programs by "Musicians from Marlboro" in New York and Philadelphia in 2000-01.

Born in 1980, Mr. Biss began his piano studies at age 6 with Karen Taylor. From 1991-1997 he studied with Evelyne Brancart at Indiana University, giving a number of recitals there and statewide. He was the winner of the Indianapolis Symphony and Bloomington Symphony concerto competitions in 1994, and subsequently performed the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto in G Minor with both orchestras. Since the fall of 1997, he has been continuing his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Leon Fleisher.

Mr. Biss has collaborated with such artists as Isaac Stern, Andras Schiff, James Tocco, Michael Tree, David Finckel, Paul Katz, Todd Phillips, Ani Kavafian, Timothy Eddy, Peter Wiley, the Emerson and Vermeer quartets, and his parents, Miriam Fried and Paul Biss.

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