Jonathan Biss
“Those who enjoy listening to Biss speak through the keys will discover the same narrative current running through his writing.”
ABOUT - Jonathan Biss
Praised as “a superb pianist and also an eloquent and insightful music writer” (The Boston Globe) with “impeccable taste and a formidable technique” (The New Yorker), Jonathan Biss is a world-renowned educator and critically-acclaimed author, and has appeared internationally as a soloist with the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphonies, and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras as well as the London Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw, the Philharmonia, and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, among many other ensembles. Biss is also Co-Artistic Director alongside Mitsuko Uchida at the Marlboro Music Festival, where he has spent fifteen summers.
In the 2023-24 season, Biss returns to perform with the Saint Louis Symphony and Stéphane Dénève, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Ramón Tebar, and the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Seguin at Carnegie Hall. Throughout the season, Biss will present a new project that pairs solo piano works by Schubert with new compositions by Alvin Singleton, Tyson Gholston Davis, and Tyshawn Sorey at San Francisco Performances, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, among many others. Biss continues his collaboration with Mitsuko Uchida featuring Schubert’s music for piano 4-hands at Carnegie Hall and more. He will also appear with the Brentano Quartet at Chamber Music Detroit, Club the Royal Conservatory of Toronto, and more.
European engagements this season include performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Karina Canellakis and the BBC National Orchestra and Ryan Bancroft. Biss reunites with the Elias String Quartet at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Cockermouth Music Society, and Wigmore Hall. In the new year, Biss will perform works by György Kurtág and Schubert at the Sala Verdi in Milan. He concludes his European season with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris and conductor Pekka Kuusisto and Timo Andres’s The Blind Banister, part of his ongoing Beethoven/5 commissioning project.
For more information on Jonathan, visit his website.
​His recordings are distributed through Meyer Media LLC as a partnership with JB Recordings.
Jonathan Biss Discography
Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4
Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4 (2015)
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“Beethoven’s personal life may have been short on joy, but listening to Jonathan Biss leaves one feeling grateful that he was able to discover it in composing.”
Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4 (2015)
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“Beethoven’s personal life may have been short on joy, but listening to Jonathan Biss leaves one feeling grateful that he was able to discover it in composing.”
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Vol. 5
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Vol. 5
“…a young American pianist who always displays impeccable taste and a formidable technique…”
The New Yorker
Jonathan Biss continues his nine disc Beethoven Sonata cycle by presenting Volume 5, with a most unique perspective: "20 years, and an entire cosmos, separate the sonatas that bookend this recording. The evolution that takes place within Beethoven between the C Major Sonata, Opus2 Number 3, and the A Major, Opus 101, is monumental, almost impossible to overstate:
I struggle to think of an artist — not Picasso, not Schoenberg, not Joyce — who changed so profoundly over the course of a working life. But what was the change, really?" Join in the answers Jonathan provides is this beautifully recorded performance.
Beethoven - Piano Sonatas, Vol 6
Beethoven - Piano Sonatas, Vol 6
“…thoughtful and probing … one of today's foremost Beethoven exponents.”
- Chicago Tribune
Pianist Jonathan Biss continues his nine-year, nine-disc recording cycle of all of Beethoven's piano sonatas. In addition to the monumental “Hammerklavier” sonata, the album includes Op. 14, No. 1 and Op. 27, No. 1.
As a performer who also teaches and writes about Beethoven, Jonathan has decided to approach the full cycle thematically rather than chronologically, for which decision he has been praised, in addition to the praise that he has received for his sharp technique and deep sincerity. Starting with Volume 4, Jonathan began collaborating with DFTBA (founded by John Green, author of The Fault In Our Stars, and his brother and video blog collaborator, Hank Green) and Meyer Media (founded by producer Andreas Meyer). These partnerships provide a flexible platform to integrate Jonathan's varied recording, writing, and teaching activities, most of which revolve around sharing his passion for Beethoven with as many people as possible.
Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Vol. 7
Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Vol. 7 (2018)
“…a superb pianist [and] also an eloquent and insightful music writer.”
- The Boston Globe
Jonathan Biss engages with Beethoven Piano Sonatas. This volume contains Numbers 2, 20, 17 The “Tempest”, and 30. Enjoy this masterful performance by Jonathan and receive your copy today!
Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Vol. 8
Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Vol. 8 (2019)
“…the leading Beethovenist of his thirty-something generation…”
- Independent, Michael Church
Jonathan Biss's Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Vol. 8–The recording includes Sonatas Nos. 8 (‘Pathétique’) and 31, covered in Parts 2 and 4 of Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, alongside Nos. 10 and 22, which have not yet been covered in Jonathan’s Coursera series.