Biography

Born in Israel, pianist Shai Wosner enjoyed a broad musical education from a very early age, studying piano with Emanuel Krasovsky and composition, theory and improvisation with André Hajdu. He later studied at the Juilliard School with Emanuel Ax. 

Mr. Wosner’s orchestral concerts in the 2014-15 season include engagements performing Mozart with the Hamburg Symphony and the Indianapolis Symphony, his debuts with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the Iceland Symphony, and the Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra of Milan. Other solo appearances this season include recitals at Atlanta’s Spivey Hall and with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, performing works by Schubert, Chopin, Haydn, Ligeti, Beethoven, and Missy Mazzoli. In October, he performed as a Chamber Music Society (CMS) of Lincoln Center season artist at Alice Tully Hall in New York and for CMS on Tour. Also this season, Mr. Wosner curates The Schubert Effect with the Parker Quartet at the 92nd Street Y in New York. Abroad, he performs Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano in a duo recital tour of Israel with Ralph Kirschbaum, and gives a duo recital in Germany with baritone Dietrich Henschel. Also in Germany, Mr. Wosner embarks on a duo recital tour with cellist Danjulo Ishizaka. 

In April 2015, Mr. Wosner and violinist Jennifer Koh premiered their four-part Bridge to Beethoven recital series. The project, which will continue in the 2015-16 season, pairs Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas with newly-commissioned pieces by Anthony Cheung, Vijay Iyer, Andrew Norman, and Jörg Widmann. Mr. Wosner and Ms. Koh’s first recording together, Signs, Games + Messages, was released by Cedille Records in 2013 and included works by Bartók, Janáček, and Kurtág. 

Mr. Wosner’s latest CD, released by Onyx in 2014, features Schubert’s Moments musicaux, D.780 and the Sonata in A major, D.959, paired with Missy Mazzoli’s Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos. Mr. Wosner's previous solo Schubert recording on the Onyx label was released in 2011 and his debut solo recording, of works by Brahms and Schoenberg, was released in 2010. 

Mr. Wosner was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2007-09. He is a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. Mr. Wosner resides in New York City with his wife and two children. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2005 as a Shenson Young Artist.

(June 2015)