Arts & Humanities Campus News

Pianist Jonathan Biss to give all-Beethoven concert

Jonathan Biss takes the Ramsey Concert Hall stage for an all-Beethoven program April 5 at 8 p.m.

The UGA Performing Arts Center will present award-winning pianist Jonathan Biss April 5 at 8 p.m. in Ramsey Concert Hall. Biss will perform an all-Beethoven program featuring the Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Appassionata.

Among the world’s leading interpreters of the music of Beethoven, Biss has embarked on a nine-year, nine-disc recording cycle of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas; this year he releases the seventh volume. Upon the release of the fourth volume, BBC Music Magazine said, “Jonathan Biss will surely take his place among the greats if he continues on this exalted plane.” His bestselling eBook, Beethoven’s Shadow, which described the process of recording the sonatas, was the first Kindle Single written by a classical musician.

Throughout his two-decade career, Biss has been recognized with numerous honors including the Leonard Bernstein Award, Wolf Trap’s Shouse Debut Artist Award, the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award, Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 2002 Gilmore Young Artist Award. His recent albums for EMI won Diapason d’Or de l’annee and Edison awards, and he was the first American chosen to participate in the BBC’s New Generation Artist program.

Tickets for the recital are $39 and can be purchased at the Performing Arts Center box office, online at pac.uga.edu or by calling 706-542-4400.

The concert will be recorded for broadcast on American Public Media’s Performance Today, the most popular classical music program in the country.

The Performing Arts Center is at 230 River Road on the UGA main campus in Athens.