Creating A Musician

When Jonathan Biss left the auditorium after playing with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, his father remembers him looking back and saying, "This is where I want to be." After playing in venues all over the world, concert pianist Jonathan Biss returns to his childhood home of Bloomington to play a concert at 8 p.m. Friday in Auer Hall with his mother, Miriam Fried, a violinist and IU music professor.\n"He has never looked back," said Paul Biss, Jonathan's father, also an IU music professor.\nLike most professional musicians, Jonathan did not go straight from the cradle to the Met. Jonathan began, like many children, with piano lessons, although growing up in a home where both parents were professors in a ranked music school probably didn't hurt.\n"Music is central in our family," Paul said. "When you're professional, there's rarely a day that goes by that you're not involved teaching, practicing or listening to music. It's a lifelong love affair."\nPaul said Jonathan was always listening to music as a child, including his older brother practicing piano. When he was 5 years old, Jonathan begged to be allowed to take piano lessons, but Paul and Fried told him he had to wait. \n"He was going to concerts, and it became clear he responded to music," Paul said. "It was clear he had an uncommon talent, and he went with it."\nWith his 6th birthday came the anticipated lessons, and Jonathan began instruction with Karen Taylor, assistant professor of music and director of IU's pre-college programs.\n"He adored music," Taylor said, "and he was captivated by the piano almost from the moment he hoisted himself onto the bench. Even at the age of 6, no one had to 'make' him practice. On the contrary, there were times when his parents had to drag him away from the piano."\nTaylor said Jonathan flew through the beginning method books, anticipating learning pieces composed by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.\n"From the start, Jonathan had very discriminating ears and musical tastes," Taylor said, "as well as a wealth of imagination; not surprising given the musical environment he grew up in, but rare nonetheless."\nWhen he was 10, Jonathan began to study under the direction of Evelyne Brancart, an IU music professor. Brancart said she occasionally takes young students if it's obvious they are serious about music. She could see Jonathan was.\n"He had something you just can't teach," she said. "It's called talent."\nDuring weekly lessons, Brancart said she mainly taught Jonathan coordination, how to work with the piano, because there was a lot he knew instinctively.\n"I tried to bring to him ease on the piano," she said.\nBrancart said working with children is substantially different than working with college students -- college students have so many other things on their minds besides music.\n"Concentration is what one needs to prepare pianists," Brancart said, "and in college, your concentration is everywhere."\nJonathan's concentration, however, was focused on piano. When he was 15, he was in a trio with two IU undergraduate students.\n"He benefited from excellent instruction at IU," Paul said.\nJust shy of his 17th birthday, Jonathan graduated from Bloomington High School North and headed to the Cutis Institute of Music, a prestigious music school in Philadelphia.\nAfter graduating from Institute in May 2001, Jonathan was scheduled to spend a year in Italy with six other pianists. Paul said famous musicians would regularly come and give intensive masterclasses in an effort to create a bridge from formal studies to concerts. However, because of economic troubles, Jonathan's time in Italy was cut in half.\nSince then, Paul said Jonathan has had nothing but success.\n"He's been extremely successful," Paul said. "He's playing with the greatest orchestras in the world with the most famous conductors."\nPaul said Jonathan has a self-titled album he just finished recording on the EMI label that is scheduled to be released in the spring.\nHaving Jonathan come back to Bloomington to perform is exciting for Paul, and it is a chance for those who taught him to hear and see the concert pianist Jonathan has become.\n"I'm especially interested in hearing the Bartok," Taylor said. "I haven't heard Jonathan play Bartok since he was about 10, and we worked on the 'Rumanian Folk Dances.'"\nPaul said while the success is exciting, it's not what he is most proud of.\n"I see how serious he is about the craft and the art," he said. "That means more to me than how successful he is."\n-- Contact senior writer Kathleen Quilligen at kquillig@indiana.edu.