Shai Wosner

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).

This season Mr. Wosner launches a new recital series, Schubert: The Great Sonatas, which continues his career-long, critically acclaimed engagement with the composer’s music. The series comprises Schubert’s last six piano sonatas over multiple concert programs at the 92nd Street Y in New York, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and Duke University in Durham, NC. He performs works from his latest solo recording, Impromptu (Onyx Classics), which features an eclectic mix of improvisationally inspired works by composers from Beethoven to Ives, presented by Peoples’ Symphony Concerts in New York. He also premieres Christopher Cerrone’s Dissolving Margins with the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias; performs with the Alabama, Princeton and Singapore symphony orchestras; continues his Bridge to Beethoven series with violinist Jennifer Koh; and tours in duo performances with violinist Veronika Eberle in Japan, among other engagements.

Mr. Wosner’s recordings have been praised for their inventive pairings of classical and modern masters. In addition to Impromptu, his recordings for Onyx include concertos and capriccios by Haydn and Ligeti with the Danish National Symphony conducted by Nicholas Collon; solo works by Brahms and Schoenberg; works by Schubert paired with new commissions from Missy Mazzoli; and Beethoven’s complete sonatas and variations for cello and piano with Ralph Kirshbaum. He also performs works by Bartók, Janáček, and Kurtág on a recording with violinist Jennifer Koh for Cedille Records.

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 and is a former member of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two. For several consecutive summers, he was involved in the West-Eastern Divan Workshop led by Mr. Barenboim and toured as soloist with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. 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, and St. Paul and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras. He has also performed 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.

Born in Israel, Mr. Wosner studied piano with Opher Brayer and Emanuel Krasovsky, as well as composition, theory, and improvisation with André Hajdu, and at The Juilliard School with Emanuel Ax. For more information, visit shaiwosner.com.