The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School (GGS) had announced that pianist and educator Jonathan Biss will be joining its piano faculty this September. As a former student of Leon Fleischer, the Inaugural Ihnatowycz Chair in Piano at the School, he’ll be carrying his legacy into the future.
On the GGS piano faculty, Biss will join colleagues Anton Nel, Jeremy Denk (Ihnatowycz Chair in Piano), John O’Conor, James Anagnoson, David Louie, Anya Alexeyev, Li Wang, and Michael Berkovsky.
James Anagnoson, Dean of The Glenn Gould School comments in a statement, “Jonathan Biss embodies The Glenn Gould School’s tradition of artistic excellence and intellectual curiosity. His profound insights, shaped by his mentorship under Leon Fleisher, alongside his collaborative spirit and pedagogical passion, make him an extraordinary addition to our faculty.”
Koerner Hall audiences experienced Biss in performance with the Brentano String Quartet and bassist Joseph Conyers in Schubert’s Trout Quintet as part of the 2023–24 concert season.
“I’m very much looking forward to working with the students at the Glenn Gould School in the 2025–26 academic year,” said Biss in a statement. “Many of my colleagues will be musicians I’ve long admired, and I feel a connection to the school through my teacher Leon Fleisher, who spent so many years as the Ihnatowycz Chair in Piano.
“I cannot overstate Leon’s importance in my musical life; I think of him nearly every day, never more so than when I teach. It will be very meaningful for me to spend so much time at a place that he loved, and that owes so much to his total musical integrity.”
American pianist, teacher, and writer Jonathan Biss is based in Philadelphia, and is co-artistic director of the Marlborough Music Festival.
His family includes classical music royalty. Samuel Barber wrote his cello concerto for Biss’s mother, Russian cellist Raya Garbousova. Both parents, Miriam Fried and Paul Biss, are violinists.
Jonathan began studying the piano at the age of six at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University Bloomington where both his parents taught. He later entered the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 17, studying with Leon Fleischer.
He became the first American to be selected as a BBC New Generation Artist in 2002. It launched a career that has seen him perform with major orchestras throughout the US and across Europe.
He was appointed to the piano faculty as Neubauer Family Chair at Curtis Institute in 2010. He has been a guest lecturer at the New England Conservatory of Music since 2021.
He is known for his specialty in the works of Beethoven, and Schubert, and also for championing new music.
Congratulations to Biss and the GGS on their new relationship.
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