Jonathan Biss

Pianist Jonathan Biss is recognized globally for his “impeccable taste and a formidable technique” (the New Yorker). Praised by the Boston Globe as "an eloquent and insightful music writer," Biss published his fourth book, "Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven" in 2020. The book was the first Audible Original by a classical musician and one of Audible’s top audiobooks of the year.

Throughout the 2024-25 season, Biss continued his project pairing Schubert's last sonatas with new compositions by Alvin Singleton, Tyson Gholston Davis, and Tyshawn Sorey, with performances at the Frederic Chopin Society in St. Paul, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Meany Center in Washington, and more. He appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Xian Zhang, the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Jakub Hrůša, Ottawa's National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. Biss also joined the Doric String Quartet for dates in Denmark before performing with Liza Ferschtman, Malin Broman, and Antoine Lederlin in Madrid, Helsinki, and throughout the Netherlands.

Biss has appeared as a soloist with some of the world's foremost orchestras, including the Los Angeles and New York philharmonics, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw and London Symphony orchestras, and more. He has served as co-artistic director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival alongside pianist Mitsuko Uchida since 2018. He was on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music for 10 years and has been a guest professor at schools such as the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the New England Conservatory of Music. As the author of "Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven," he examines music and his life's journey through the lens of Beethoven's late piano sonatas.

In 2015, Biss embarked on a groundbreaking collaboration with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, launching the "Beethoven/5" commissioning project. This initiative has yielded five new piano concertos, each written by a distinguished composer in response to one of Beethoven's iconic works. In April 2024, Orchid Classics released the first volume of the series, pairing Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, the Emperor, with Gneixendorfermusik: Eine Winterreise by Brett Dean, recorded with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under David Afkham. The second volume, released in October 2024, features Sally Beamish’s City Stanzas paired with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. Future volumes will include works by Caroline Shaw, Timo Andres, and Salvatore Sciarrino, with releases planned through 2026.

Over his career, Biss has collaborated with a wide range of esteemed musicians, from Mark Padmore to Midori. In the 2023-24 season, he joined the Brentano String Quartet and double bassist Joseph Conyers for a tour featuring Beethoven's late works and Schubert's Trout Quintet. In spring 2024, he joined forces with Mitsuko Uchida to highlight Schubert's four-hand piano music in a series concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Princeton University, and Schenectady's Union College, following an international tour that included London, Dublin, and performances at the Salzburg, San Sebastián, and Gstaad festivals. An advocate of newly commissioned works, Biss recently collaborated with composers Alvin Singleton, Tyshawn Sorey, and Tyson Gholston Davis for his Schubert commissioning project, which he presented at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, San Francisco Performances, and the Ravinia Festival in the 2023-24 season.

Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020, Biss recorded the composer’s complete piano sonatas and offered insights on all 32 landmark works via his free Coursera lecture series, "Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas." In March 2020, he gave a virtual recital presented by 92NY, performing Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas for an online audience of more than 280,000 people. In 2024, Biss participated in Princeton University Concerts’ "Healing With Music" series, appearing alongside author Adam Haslett for a panel discussion on anxiety, depression, and creativity.

Biss is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Leonard Bernstein Award, the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, and a Gilmore Young Artist Award. His albums for EMI have won the Diapason d’Or de l’Année and Edison awards. He was an artist-in-residence on American Public Media’s "Performance Today" and was the first American chosen for the BBC’s New Generation Artist program.

Biss is a third-generation professional musician. His grandmother, Raya Garbousova, was one of the first famous female cellists and the dedicatee of Samuel Barber's Cello Concerto. His parents, violinist Miriam Fried and violist/violinist Paul Biss, nurtured his early musical talents. He began piano studies at age six and later studied with Evelyne Brancart at Indiana University and Leon Fleisher at the Curtis Institute of Music.