Jonathan Biss

Jonathan Biss is a world-renowned pianist who shares his deep musical curiosity with classical music lovers in the concert hall and beyond. In addition to performing a full schedule of concerts, he has spent many summers at the Marlboro Music Festival and written extensively about his relationships with the composers with whom he shares a stage. A member of the faculty of his alma mater the Curtis Institute of Music since 2010, Biss led the first massive open online course (MOOC) offered by a classical music conservatory, "Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas," which has reached more than 150,000 people in 185 countries. Part 3 came out in January 2018, and he will continue to add lectures until he covers all of the sonatas. He initiated the "Beethoven/5" project, for which the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra is co-commissioning five composers to write new piano concertos, each inspired by one of Beethoven's. The five-year plan began with Biss premiering Timo Andres's “The Blind Banister,” a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, which was followed by Sally Beamish's “City Stanzas,” and Salvatore Sciarrino's “Il Sogno di Stradella." There are still concertos by Caroline Shaw and Brett Dean to come. Biss has embarked on a nine-year, nine-disc recording cycle of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas. His bestselling eBook, "Beethoven’s Shadow," describing the process of recording the sonatas, was the first Kindle Single written by a classical musician.