Jenny Lin

Jenny Lin is a Taiwanese-born American pianist Jenny Lin is one of the most respected young pianists today, admired for her adventurous programming and charismatic stage presence. Her ability to combine classical and contemporary literature has brought her to the attention of international critics and audiences. She has been acclaimed for her "remarkable technical command" and "a gift for melodic flow" by The New York Times. The Washington Post praises "Lin's confident fingers... spectacular technique..." and Gramophone Magazine has hailed her as "an exceptionally sensitive pianist". Martha Argerich wrote: "Miss Jenny Lin is a very gifted young musician and a brilliant pianist." Jenny's recent orchestral engagements have included Manuel de Falla's Nights in the Garden of Spain with the La Orquesta Sinfónica de Gijón; Ernest Bloch's Concerto Grosso No. 1 with the SWR Rundfunkorchester; the world premiere of Stefano Gervasoni's Piano Concerto with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nationale della RAI; Messiaen's Oiseaux Exotiques with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra; Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan; and tour of Asia in Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Ma Shui- Long's Piano Concerto with Philharmonia Taiwan. She has also appeared with the Flemish Radio Orchestra, the Nürnberger Symphoniker, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Erato Philharmonia, Rumanian Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta de Valencia, and performed with conductors such as Lothar Zagrosek, Jiri Starek, Urs Schneider, Peter Bay, Jac van Steen, Ovidiu Balan, Wen-Pin Chien, Kek-Tjiang Lim, John Kennedy, and Oliver Diaz. Her concerts have taken her to Carnegie Recital Hall, Miller Theatre, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, Morgan Library, Wordless Music Series, Merce Cunningham's Experiments in the Studio, the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center in New York; Kennedy Center, Corcoran Gallery, and Phillips Collection in Washington DC; University of Chicago Presents and Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; as well as Festival worldwide at Chopin Festival in Austria, Flanders and Ars Musica Festivals in Belgium, Divonne Festival in France, Millennium Festival in Spain, Festival Archipel in Switzerland, SoundaXis Festival in Canada, BAM's Next Wave, MATA, and Spoleto Festivals in the USA. Upcoming performances include the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Strathmore in Maryland, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, and June in Buffalo. Jenny's extensive discography includes critically acclaimed recordings on Koch International Classics, Hänssler Classic, BIS Records, Sunrise Records, and Poem Culture Records. Her latest CDs include InsomniMania (William Bolcom, John Cage, John Musto, Frederic Rzewski) and music for Piano and Orchestra by Ernest Bloch with the SWR German Radio Orchestra. The New York Times called her Preludes to a Revolution (Russian Piano Preludes 1905-1922) "…a darn good listen…", All-Music Guide raved: "The 11th Finger (György Ligeti, Elliott Sharp, James Tenney, Claude Vivier) is a thrill ride for musical adventurers" and "Jenny Lin's playing is nothing less than superhuman", and Gramophone praised her album of piano works by Valentin Silvestrov a "beautifully arranged programme." Other notable releases in her catalogue have included chamber works by Silvestrov with the World Premiere of Piano Trio Drama, the first complete recording of the piano music of Ruth Crawford Seeger, Chinoiserie (works by Western composers who were inspired by China: John Adams, Gioacchino Rossini, Alexander Tcherepnin, Leo Ornstein, Morton Gould, Bohuslav Martinu, and Ferruccio Busoni), and compositions by Chinese composers Guan Xia and Ma Yo-Dao. Her debut album of Liszt's Sonata in B minor and Schumann's Fantasie in C Major received "Best Performer" at the Golden Melody Award, the Asian Grammy. Two more releases are due in 2009: 24 Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 by Dmitri Shostakovitch and Federico Mompou's Musica Callada. Jenny is the central figure in Cooking for Jenny by Elemental Films, a musical documentary portraying her journey to the north of Spain and meeting with composer Javier López de Guereña for the preparation of the world premier of his piano concerto ZAHARA. As one of the most sought-after players of the music of our time, Jenny has numerous premieres and dedications to her credit. She has worked alongside composers such as Jonathan Bepler, Boudewijn Cox, Daniel Felsenfeld, Cornelius Dufallo, Luca Francesconi, John King, George Lewis, Frederic Rzewski, Randy Nordschow, Jim Pugliese, Elliott Sharp, Valentin Silvestrov, Salvatore Sciarrino, Johannes Maria Staud and James Tenney, several of whom have written pieces for her. Among her multifaceted activities, she has collaborated with Jazz pianist Chris Wiesendanger, Elliott Sharp's Orchestra Carbon, and Wilco members Nels Cline and Glenn Kotche. Born in Taiwan and raised in Austria, Jenny studied with Noel Flores at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, with Julian Martin at the Peabody Conservatory (Artist Diploma) in Baltimore, and with Dominique Weber in Geneva. She has also worked with Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, and Blanca Uribe, and with Dimitri Bashkirov and Andreas Staier at the Fondazione Internazionale per il pianoforte in Como, Italy. She holds a bachelor's degree in German Literature from The Johns Hopkins University and currently resides in New York City where she also serves on the faculty of the 92nd Street Y. (September 2008) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.