Jonathan Biss in a Benefit for Community MusicWorksApril 8, 2016 -
Community MusicWorks welcomes the return of world-renowned pianist Jonathan Biss for a gala performance of Beethoven’s Sonata in B flat Major, Op. 106 “Hammerklavier,” and Schubert’s Sonata in A Major, D.959 in a benefit for CMW. Friday, April 8 at 8pm
Jonathan Biss is a world-renowned pianist who shares his deep musical and intellectual curiosity with classical music lovers in the concert hall and beyond. He performs a diverse repertoire ranging from Mozart and Beethoven, through the Romantics to Janáek and Schoenberg, as well as works by contemporary composer Gyorgy Kurtág and commissions from Leon Kirchner, Lewis Spratlan, and Bernard Rands. Biss has a noted recording career, including an album of Schubert sonatas and two short Kurtág pieces that NPR Music named as one of the best albums of the year. His recent albums for EMI won Diapason dOr de lannée and Edison awards, and in 2016 he releases the fifth volume of his nine-year, nine-disc recording cycle of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas. Biss studied at Indiana University and at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he joined the piano faculty in 2010. He led the first massive open online course (MOOC) offered by a classical music conservatory, Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, which has reached more than 100,000 people in more than 160 countries, and he will continue to add lectures until he covers all the sonatas. His bestselling eBook, Beethoven’s Shadow, published by RosettaBooks in 2011, was the first Kindle Single written by a classical musician. This season Biss launches his latest Beethoven project, Beethoven/5, for which the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) is commissioning five composers to write new piano concertos, each inspired by one of Beethoven’s five piano concertos. For more information about Jonathan Biss, please visit www.jonathanbiss.com. Photo by Benjamin Ealovega |
