Jonathan Biss

Acclaimed American pianist Jonathan Biss is touring Europe this summer with a special four-hands program together with pianist Mitsuko Uchida - concerts will take them to the Salzburg Festival, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Quincena Musical de San Sebastian, Dublin and London with two concerts at the renowned Wigmore Hall.

"Schubert's 4-hand music is a treasure trove, and largely neglected. These works have every quality that makes Schubert's music so uniquely affecting - the lyricism and tenderness, the loneliness and terror. But they require two pianists with a deep attunement to one another. When I play with Mitsuko, I feel that our ears are pointed towards the same things, that the same events in the music speak to us most deeply. She has been an essential presence in my life for 25 years - first as a mentor, then as a close friend and colleague, always a source of inspiration", says Jonathan Biss.

Known for his international concert activities, Jonathan Biss is also known for his versatility as an artist and musician. Besides travelling around the world performing, he enjoys writing about his concert repertoire and has already published four audio and e-books, including UNQUIET: My Life with Beethoven (musical excerpts also here on the newly founded YouTube-Channel). Since 2018, Biss has been co-artistic director of the Marlboro Music Festival. For him, it's all about the idea that "time is the most precious commodity, and the most important ingredient in a musician’s life". His close collaboration and connection with Mitsuko Uchida, who has been Artistic Director of the festival since 2013, lines up with this sentiment. Every summer at the festival, musicians of all ages spend up to seven weeks with the exchange of ideas and the intensive rehearsal of a wide variety of chamber music works and perform them in weekend concerts.

20 August San Sebastian, Auditorio Kursaal
Quincena Musical de San Sebastian
23 August Salzburg, Haus für Mozart
Salzburger Festspiele
29 August Saanen, Kirche
Gstaad Menuhin Festival
5 September Dublin, RIAM
Wigmore Hall Festival
8 September London, Wigmore Hall
10 September London, Wigmore Hall

Franz Schubert: Lebensstürme – Allegro in A Minor, D. 947
Franz Schubert: March D819 / 5 in E flat minor
Franz Schubert: Rondo in A Major, D. 951
Franz Schubert: Divertissement à la hongroise, D. 818

Jonathan Biss is a world renowned pianist who channels his deep musical curiosity into performances and projects in the concert hall and beyond. In addition to performing with today’s leading orchestras, he continues to expand his reputation as a teacher, musical thinker, and one of the great Beethoven interpreters of our time. In addition, he is passionate about new music - he  commissioned concertos from Sally Beamish, Timo Andres, Caroline Shaw, Salvatore Sciarrino and Brett Dean for his Beethoven/5 project for which he asked each composer to write in response to one of Beethoven’s five piano concertos. Another commissioning project will launch in 2024 with new solo piano works from Alvin Singleton, Tyshawn Sorey and Tyson Davies. He also led a massive open online course via Coursera, reaching an international audience of over 150,000. He is Co-Artistic Director alongside Mitsuko Uchida at the Marlboro Music Festival, where he has spent fifteen summers.

During this and the next season, Biss gives solo recitals in cities including Cologne, New York, Philadelphia, Milan, Singapore, Jerusalem, San Francisco, Boston and Sydney; he performed Beethoven trios with Midori and cellist Antoine Lederlin in Cologne, Engadin, Hamburg, London, and Tokyo; and appears as soloist with the Atlanta Symphony, Concerto Budapest as well as with the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre Paris and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra will follow.

In 2020, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Biss concluded over a decade-long immersion in the composer’s music, which included concert series, recordings, writings, lectures, and commissions of Beethoven-inspired works. Through the course of his Beethoven study, Biss recorded the composer’s complete piano sonatas, and offered insights to all 32 landmark works. Orchid Classics released the nine-disc sonata cycle box set in March 2020. That same month, Biss performed Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas in a virtual recital for an online audience of more than 280,000 people. This was followed by a daily video series of selections from the Beethoven sonatas presented via Biss’ Facebook page over the course of several weeks.

More information on jonathanbiss.com and the YouTube channel @JonathanBissOfficial