Piano
Pianist Shai Wosner has attracted international recognition for his exceptional artistry, musical integrity, and creative insight. His performances of a broad range of repertoire—from Beethoven and Schubert to Ligeti and the music of today—reflect a degree of virtuosity and intellectual curiosity that has made him a favorite among audiences and critics, who note his “keen musical mind and deep musical soul” (NPR’s All Things Considered).
Mr. Wosner’s recital repertoire this season also includes works from his latest solo recording, Impromptu (Onyx Classics), which features an eclectic mix of improvisationally inspired works by composers from Beethoven and Schubert to Gershwin and Ives. The pieces range from true improvisations to such stylized miniatures as Schubert’s Four Impromptus, D935, and together they reflect Mr. Wosner’s interest in exploring subtle connections between works of contrasting styles and time periods. He performs music from the album at the Chopin Society in St. Paul and elsewhere.
Mr. Wosner’s concerto performances this season include appearances with the Detroit and Toronto Symphony Orchestras (Mozart’s Concerto No. 21); the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (Brahms’ Concerto No. 2), and Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Musikalische Akademie of the National Theater Orchestra Mannheim, Symphoria (Syracuse), and Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra. He also embarks on a six-city U.S. tour (including a performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC) playing works for 4-hands and two pianos with longtime friend and collaborator Orion Weiss, on a program pairing works by Schubert and Brahms with David Lang’s companion works gravity and after gravity. Additional chamber music collaborations include performances with the Emerson Quartet presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; New York Philharmonic musicians at David Geffen Hall; cellist Stephen Isserlis and violinist Laura Frautschi as part of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s Twilight at Tarisio series, and a program from his Bridge to Beethoven series with violinist Jennifer Koh on Baltimore’s Shriver Hall Concert Series.
Mr. Wosner is a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award—a prize he used to commission Michael Hersch’s concerto Along the Ravines, which he performed with the Seattle Symphony and Deutsche Radio Philharmonie in its world and European premieres. He was in residence with the BBC as a New Generation Artist, during which he appeared frequently with the BBC orchestras, including conducting Mozart concertos from the keyboard with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He returned to the BBC Scottish Symphony in both subscription concerts and Proms performances with Donald Runnicles and appeared with the BBC Philharmonic in a live broadcast from Manchester's Bridgewater Hall.
As a concerto soloist in the U.S., Mr. Wosner has appeared with the orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Berkeley, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco, among others. In addition to the BBC orchestras, he has performed abroad with the Barcelona Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, LSO St. Luke’s, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Nieuw Sinfonietta Amsterdam, Orchestre National de Belgique, Staatskapelle Berlin, and the Vienna Philharmonic, among others. Mr. Wosner has also appeared with the Orpheus, St. Paul, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras, having conducted the latter from the keyboard in a 2010 concert that was broadcast on American Public Radio.
Born in Israel, Mr. Wosner enjoyed a broad musical education from a very early age, studying piano with Opher Brayer and Emanuel Krasovsky, as well as composition, theory, and improvisation with André Hajdu. He later studied at The Juilliard School with Emanuel Ax. Mr. Wosner is on the faculty at the Longy School of Music in Boston. He resides in New York with his wife and two children.
For more information on Mr. Wosner, please visit his fan page on Facebook and go to shaiwosner.com.
