Biography

Jonathan Biss represents the third generation in a family of professional musicians. He began his piano studies at age six, and he later studied at Indiana University with Evelyne Brancart and at the Curtis Institute of Music with Leon Fleisher. He has been a member of the faculty at Curtis since 2011. 

This season, Mr. Biss performs throughout the United States and Europe, including appearances with the Chicago, Danish National, BBC, Stuttgart Radio, and Finnish Radio symphony orchestras; the New York Philharmonic; the Philharmonia and Minnesota orchestras, and the Los Angeles and Netherlands chamber orchestras. He tours Italy and the United States with tenor Mark Padmore and performs with the Belcea Quartet at Wigmore Hall. He also makes recital appearances in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, Denver, and at the Aldeburgh and Rheingau festivals and the International Piano Series in London. Additional performances include the UK premiere at the BBC Proms of Bernard Rands’s Piano Concerto, commissioned by Mr. Biss, Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Chicago Symphony, and an appearance with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. 

Mr. Biss has embarked on a nine-year, nine-disc recording cycle of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas; the fourth volume was released in January 2015. He has also published an Amazon Kindle Single, Beethoven's Shadow, in addition to offering a massive online open course on Beethoven’s piano sonatas through the Curtis Institute and Coursera. In previous seasons, he explored the music of Schumann in concerts, writings, and recordings. Mr. Biss has commissioned works from David Ludwig, Leon Kirchner, Lewis Spratlan, and Bernard Rands, and has premiered piano quintets by Timothy Andres and William Bolcom. He is developing a commissioning project based on Beethoven’s piano concertos. 

Mr. Biss has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Schleswig-Holstein Festival’s Leonard Bernstein Award, Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the 2003 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, and the 2002 Gilmore Young Artist Award. He was an artist-in-residence on American Public Media’s Performance Today and was the first American chosen to participate in the BBC’s New Generation Artist program. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2002.

(June 2015)