Wolf Trap’s Inaugural Chamber Music Artistic Advisor: Jonathan Biss

Nov 16, 2015

World-renowned pianist Jonathan Biss is joining Wolf Trap Foundation as its first Chamber Music Artistic Advisor.

In addition to his performance schedule, he has spent eight summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, and has written extensively for prestigious media outlets about 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 school’s first massive open online course to a virtual classroom of 51,000 students last season.

Biss was Wolf Trap’s first chamber music Debut Artist; he performed alongside renowned violinist Isaac Stern in fall 1996. He returns to Wolf Trap to put his personal stamp on Chamber Music at The Barns. He and Wolf Trap’s Lee Anne Myslewski have curated this season’s performances; the ensembles may not have names you’ll recognize, but they’re performers that you’ll want to know about and follow.

“The opportunity to expose Wolf Trap audiences to the aesthetic and musical taste of an artist like Jonathan—who both has a history with us and is at the pinnacle of his career—is a great honor. There is so much wonderful chamber music being made in the United States and abroad, and Jonathan’s deep knowledge of the repertoire and the field has allowed us to compose a season which will unite fresh new talent and some of the most beloved pieces in the canon.”—Lee Anne Myslewski, Director of Artistic Administration, Wolf Trap Opera & Classical Programming

Biss writes: “The last time I played at The Barns at Wolf Trap I was 17, a brand-new student at the Curtis Institute, and I came to play a recital with Isaac Stern. To say this was a dream come true suggests it was something that I had conceived of as remotely possible; this was not the case. Therefore, it’s slightly surreal and very moving to come back to The Barns 18 years later to play a recital and help Wolf Trap plan the chamber season. Wolf Trap—and, of course, Mr. Stern—took a huge chance on me all those years ago. While none of the wonderful artists coming to play at The Barns this season are remotely as inexperienced now as I was then, having a hand in inviting musicians who are, in many cases, still in the early stages of their careers, presents me with the opportunity to pay forward a small fraction of what was given to me.”

To read more about the 2015–2016 Chamber Music at The Barns season curated by Biss and Myslewski, visit wolftrap.org/chamber.