Brian Ganz

Pianist Brian Ganz has accumulated a list of awards, concert credits, and solo appearances with orchestras that establish him as one of the leading pianists of his generation. After recent performances with the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch critic wrote: “Note-perfect cascades of rippling arpeggios, melodies soaring into space and microscopically sculpted phrases only begin to describe Ganz’s breathtaking technique and spectacular musicianship”.

Ganz was co-winner of First Grand Prize in the 1989 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris, where he was awarded special prizes for the best recital round of the competition and best performance of the required work. That same year, he won a Beethoven Fellowship awarded by the American Pianists Association, and in 1991, he was silver medalist with third prize in the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Piano Competition.

He has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the St. Louis Symphony, the National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the National Chamber Orchestra, L’Orchestre National de Belgique, L’Orchestre Lamoureux, the City of London Sinfonia and L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. He has performed in such halls as the Kennedy Center Concert Hall and Terrace Theater, La Salle Pleyel and Salle Gaveau in Paris, La Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, De Doelen in Rotterdam, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, L’Arena Theater in Verona, and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. His performances have been heard on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, and he has been broadcast live from both Paris on Radio France and Brussels on Belgian Radio and Television.

Ganz made his recording debut in August of 1992 in Belgium, and his recordings of works by Dutilleux and Chopin have been released on the Accord label in Paris. He has also recorded for the Gailly and REM labels in Europe. Recent performance highlights include a 1993 concerto appearance at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony under the baton of Mstislav Rostropovich, a concerto performance in the Phillipines’ first Mostly Mozart Festival; and a concerto performance for the 1994 Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, under the baton of Gustav Meier. A live CD recording of the 1994 Long-Thibaud gala concert in Paris includes Ganz’ collaboration with the French pianist Phillipe Entremont and Russian pianist Jania Aoubakirova in Mozart’s Concerto for Three Pianos and Orchestra, K.242.

Ganz is a graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Leon Fleisher. A 1990 Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, Ganz is also an accomplished chamber musician. He has been called “splendid” as an accompanist/duo partner by the New York Times, and “a model chamber musician” by the Washington Post.

Gifted as a teacher, Brian Ganz is Musician-in-Residence and is a member of the piano faculty at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He is also an adjunct member of the faculty at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, where serves as a teaching assistant to Leon Fleisher. Ganz is an active participant in the fight against hunger both locally and throughout the world, and frequently donates performances in benefit concerts. He is a founding member of the Washington Chapter of Artists to End Hunger. (2008)