Restaurant -Hour
of Detroit
the magazine
Year
2004
exceptional pianist for any age group."
Biss made his official New York debut
at a recital at the 92nd Street Y's Tisch
Center for the Arts in 2000. That same
year, he soloed with the New York
Philharmonic, performing Beethoven's
Choral Fantasy.
His career has so far included solo
appearances with most major U.S.
orchestras, the Staatskapelle Berlin and
numerous others. He's also presented
many enthusiastically reviewed solo and
chamber music recitals and gained radio
time as Young Artist in Residence on
National Public Radio's Performance
Today.
A graduate of the Curtis Institute of
Music in Phildelphia, Biss has been rec-
ognized with numerous awards, includ-
ing an Avery Fisher Career Grant, a
Gilmore Young Artist Award and a
Shouse Debut Artist Award from the
Wolf Trap Foundation.
Biss, who has dual citizenship in the
United States and Israel, performed last
summer at the Jerusalem Chamber
Music Festival.
He last appeared in metro Detroit in
1997 and 1998, as a festival artist with
the Great Lakes Chamber Music
Festival.
Rigorous Yet Accessible
Kirchner's Piano Sonata No. 2, originally
written for violin and piano in 2002, is
only a small part of the Feb. 19 pro-
gram. Biss is generally devoted to the
classics but has formed a personal bond
with Kirchner and frequently programs
his pieces.
The 86-year-old composer is himself
an accomplished pianist. As a young
man, he studied composition with
Arnold Schoenberg and Roger Sessions,
and, as may be expected, his own works
tend toward the serialist. However,
Kirchner also studied with the more tra-
ditional Max Bruch and spent many
years interacting with students as a pro-
fessor at Harvard University.
'As much Schoenberg as there is in his
music, there's also jazz," Biss says. "I
always recognize his stuff; it's quite
unique."
The CMS concert will mark the
fourth time Biss has played this specific
Kirchner work, which the young pianist
describes as "rigorous and accessible at
the same time."
"The sonata has seven distinct move-
ments, connected to each other in
ingenious ways," he says. "The harmon-
ic language is very recognizable."
In fact, when Kirchner himself played
the sonata at New York's Jttilliard School,
one student actually said it reminded
him of the music of Edvard Grieg.
In February 2004, after Biss per-
formed works by both Kirchner and
Alban Berg, Philadelphia Inquirer
reviewer David Patrick Stearns corn-
mented, "Most young performers are
too success-driven to risk turning off
audiences with modern or modernistic
music. Clearly Biss isn't one of them —
another reason to look forward to his
next 30 years."
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Launching A Life
Biss maintains that he is as interested in
success as anyone else, but that success
has to come with intellectual honesty.
He has not entered any of the "big-
time" piano competitions, the
Tchaikovsky, the Chopin or any of the
others that have proliferated in the past
20 years, and he is not sorry.
"I've been very lucky," he says. "I've
been successful beyond my wildest
expectations without them."
With a career evenly divided between
solo, orchestral and chamber music, Biss
chose a solo recital for his first CD.
Released last May by EMI, the CD
includes works of Beethoven and
Schumann.
"In this impressive debut album, Biss
establishes himself as a serious, accom-
plished artist who puts the composer
before the performer," wrote a reviewer
for the Los Angeles Times.
Last fall, the young pianist began pur-
suing a second bachelor's degree, this
time from Columbia University in New
York City. He attends the university's
School of General Studies, which is
designed for students who are also pur-
suing careers, scheduling classes for the
beginning of the week, when he is not
likely to have performing commitments.
He studies between concerts.
"The way a person plays is a reflection
of who that person is," he says. "I'm not
a musician in a bubble. It's important
that my life be more than the last con-
cert.
"That being said," he quickly adds,
"music is my passion." ❑
The Chamber Music Society of
Detroit presents pianist Jonathan
Biss in recital 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb.
19, at Detroit Country Day
School's Seligman Recital Hall.
$23-$70.To order tickets, call
(248) 855-6070. For more infor-
mation about this or other CMS
concerts, log on to
www.comehearcmsd.org.
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