Photo credit: Chester Higgins

Classical music critic Donald Rosenberg, writing in the Plain Dealer, praised pianist Jonathan Biss as “a deeply poetic musician who summons a spectrum of emotional shadings from the keyboard.” He followed with a request: “Now let’s hear him in concert, please.” Well, Oberlin is happy to oblige. The 25 year-old virtuoso performs on Tuesday, March 13, at 8 pm, as part of the Artist Recital Series.

Biss will present a program that includes Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3; Variations, Op. 27 by Webern; Mozart’s Sonata in A Minor, K. 310; Perle’s Ballade; and Kreisleriana, Op. 16 by Schumann. The concert will be held in Finney Chapel, located at the corner of North Professor Street and Lorain in Oberlin.

Reserved-seat tickets are $7 for students, $16 for seniors and those with an Oberlin College I.D., and $20 for the general public. They may be purchased in advance by calling Oberlin's Central Ticket Service at 1-800-371-0178. Tickets purchased at the door the night of the concert are an additional $3.

Through his orchestral and recital performances in North America and Europe, Biss has proved himself an accomplished and exceptional musician with a flourishing international reputation. Since making his New York Philharmonic debut five years ago, he has performed with most major North American orchestras. Abroad, he has performed with the BBC Symphony, the Munich and Rotterdam philharmonics, and Staatskapelle Berlin. He has been recognized with numerous awards, most recently, the 2005 Leonard Bernstein Award presented to him at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany. He represents the third generation in a family of professional musicians that includes his grandmother, cellist Raya Garbousova, for whom Samuel Barber composed his Cello Concerto, and his parents, violinist Miriam Fried, and violist/violinist Paul Biss.

Media sponsorship for the Artist Recital Series is provided by WCLV 104.9-FM, Cleveland’s classical music radio station, and 90.3-WCPN ideastream. Corporate sponsorship is provided by the DeWitt Stern Group, Legend Financial Group, and the Riverside Company. For more information about the 2006-07 season of the Artist Recital Series, please visit www.oberlin.edu/arseries.