Barbara Nissman

Barbara Nissman (born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an internationally acclaimed American concert pianist. Amongst her repertoire[1] she is especially known for her interpretations and performances of the works of Alberto Ginastera and Sergei Prokofiev.

Nissman's international career was personally launched by Eugene Ormandy with debuts arranged in all of the major European capitals[2] after he heard her perform as a student at the University of Michigan. She subsequently made her American professional debut as soloist with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. She has also performed with some of the leading orchestras in Europe, including the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Munich Philharmonic. In the United States she has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, among others. She has worked with major conductors of our time, including Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo Muti, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Leonard Slatkin.[3]

The final composition of Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, Piano Sonata No. 3, was dedicated to Nissman; its first performance was given at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center in 1982, and her recording of the work is available on her disc Alberto Ginastera: The Complete Music for Piano & Piano/Chamber Ensembles. In 2010, the last composition by Benjamin Lees, Visage, was written for Nissman[4] and her recording of the work is available on her disc Fascinating Rhythms!. She has also participated in many other premiere performances.[5]

Nissman made history in 1989 by becoming the first pianist to perform the complete piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev in a series of three recitals in both New York and London. Her recordings of this repertoire represented the first complete set of Prokofiev's piano sonatas made available on compact disc.

In June 2014 at Steinway Hall in New York City, Nissman launched her record label Three Oranges Recordings, devoted to furthering classical music and making it more accessible.[6]

Education and awards

Nissman attended the University of Michigan on full scholarship and received a Bachelor of Music degree in 1966. Upon graduation she was awarded the Stanley Medal (named after Albert A. Stanley, Director of the School of Music from 1888 to 1921), "presented annually to the graduating senior...most outstanding in his or her curriculum, with special consideration given to scholarship and public performance."[7]

In 1966 she was awarded a three year National Defense Education Act Title IV fellowship for her master and doctoral studies at the University of Michigan. Nissman was also awarded a three year post-doctoral grant from the university (underwritten by the Power Foundation in 1969) to begin her international performing career. In 1981 she was the recipient of the Michigan Alumnae Council's Athena Award, bestowed annually since 1973 "on outstanding alumnae who have distinguished themselves in professional and humanitarian endeavors,"[8] and the School of Music's Citation of Merit Award in 1996, presented annually "to recognize and honor individuals who have made outstanding contributions to society, their profession, [or to the university]."[9]

Nissman also received grants from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation and The Philadelphia Foundation, as well as a National Endowment for the Arts recital grant to present the Prokofiev sonata series at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center in 1989.

In 2003, Nissman was one of 23 pianists profiled in the article "Hall of Legends," which appeared in the Steinway & Sons 150th Anniversary Commemorative Publication.[10] The profiled pianists, chosen from the thousands of past and present Steinway artists, also included Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Diana Krall, Van Cliburn, Billy Joel, Harry Connick, Jr., James Levine, Murray Perahia, Edward Kennedy Ellington, Alfred Brendel, Randy Newman, Evgeny Kissin, Herbie Hancock, Krystian Zimerman, Christopher O'Riley, Maurizio Pollini, Ignace Jan Paderewski, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Marcus Roberts, Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Wagner, and Billy Taylor.[11]

In 2006, Nissman was elected to the Court of Honor of Distinguished Daughters of the Philadelphia High School for Girls "for outstanding lifetime achievement as an internationally acclaimed concert pianist, recording artist and educator."

In 2008 Nissman was a recipient of the Governor's Arts Award from the State of West Virginia for "Distinguished Service to the Arts."[12]

Alberto Ginastera

Barbara Nissman has long been associated with the music of Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, and the composer's final work, Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 54 (1982) is dedicated to her.[13] In 1976 she was invited by the composer to play his Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 28 (1961) in Geneva at his sixtieth birthday celebration, where she performed the work with L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Jean-Marie Auberson.[14] She also presented the Netherlands premiere of the concerto at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and its UK premiere with the BBC Symphony, and has performed the concerto with the Chicago Symphony,[15] St. Louis Symphony and the New York Philharmonic[16] under Leonard Slatkin.

In 2006 she co-hosted a five-part BBC Radio 3 series that featured Ginastera as Composer-of-the-Week.[17] In 2011, with the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Kiesler, she performed all 3 piano concertos in one evening including Concierto Argentino for piano and orchestra (an early work written in 1935 and then withdrawn from the catalogue by the composer shortly after its first performance) and the first performance in its original form of Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 39 (1972).[18] Nissman et al.'s disc of all three concerti on the Pierian label[19][20] represents the first recording of all three works and the “official reintroduction” of the Concierto Argentino. After Nissman discovered this concerto in the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music in Philadelphia, Aurora Natola-Ginastera, the widow of the composer, granted her exclusivity to perform the work and also to make available its first recording. Nissman is also the editor of the new critical edition of Piano Concerto No.2, published by Boosey & Hawkes.[21]

Sergei Prokofiev

Nissman made history in 1989 by becoming the first pianist to perform the complete piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev in a series of three recitals in both New York and London, and premiered the two-page fragment of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 10 in E minor, Op. 137 (1952) during her Prokofiev series at Lincoln Center.[22][23] Her recordings of this repertoire represented the first complete set of Prokofiev's piano sonatas made available on compact disc.[24][25]

As a Prokofiev scholar and authority, Nissman first visited the Soviet Union in 1984, at the height of the Cold War, as a guest of the Embassy of Denmark in Moscow. In 1998 she returned to Russia as a guest of the Moscow State Conservatory to present master classes and concerts of Prokofiev's music, and also presented master classes at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.[26]

In commemoration of Prokofiev's 100th birthday in 1991, Nissman performed the complete cycle of his piano sonatas throughout Europe and the United States.[27]

On May 8, 2004, Nissman presented a lecture at the University of London titled “Prokofiev Meets Gershwin: Gershwin Meets Prokofiev,” as part of a conference titled Prokofiev and America. The conference, which also featured lectures by Arnold Whittall, Alastair Macaulay, Harlow Robinson, Noëlle Mann, et al., was jointly sponsored by the university’s Sergei Prokofiev Archive and its Institute of United States Studies (now the Institute for the Study of the Americas). The lecture was adapted into an article titled “When Gershwin Met Prokofiev” that was printed in the Winter 2005 issue of Piano Today magazine. Nissman also performed several of Prokofiev's solo piano works at the conference's John Coffin Memoral Recital.[28]

Nissman was a featured performer at the dedication of Columbia University's Prokofiev Archive on April 24, 2015, with members of the Prokofiev family in attendance.[29][30]

Prokofiev biographer Daniel Jaffé,[31] in the December 2008 issue of BBC Music Magazine, selected Nissman's recordings as the best recordings of Prokofiev's piano music.[32]

Béla Bartók

In 2002 Scarecrow Press published Nissman’s book, Bartók and the Piano: A Performer’s View, including a full-length CD of selected works performed by the author.[33] At the University of Michigan Nissman studied with György Sándor, himself a student of Béla Bartók.

Nissman was the first to perform and record Bartók’s unpublished 1898 Sonata, which she discovered in the Morgan Library's manuscript collection while researching her book.[34] Her recording of this work is available on her disc Folk Music and More!.

Out of Doors, Nissman's first release on her own label Three Oranges Recordings, pays homage to Bartok's 1926 composition.

Notable Achievements

Since 2002, Nissman has been involved with the Robert James Frascino AIDS Foundation benefit concert series “A Concerted Effort.” To date these concerts have raised well over two million dollars for AIDS service organizations worldwide.[35][36][37] In November 2014 she performed at a gala at the de Young Museum in San Francisco to honor Dr. Arthur Ammann, founder of Global Strategies, an organization that serves the healthcare needs of women and children in neglected areas of the world.[38]

In 2007, Nissman appeared on stage with Don Henley and Billy Joel, performing on the “Walden Woods Steinway”[39][40] in a gala fundraiser for the Walden Woods Project, held at Jazz at Lincoln Center.[41]

From 1977 to 1980 Nissman served as artist in residence for the John Deere corporation, providing "recitals, master classes, and a music lecture series to Deere plant communities in the U.S. and abroad for six months each year."[42] This was the first time an international corporation employed a classical artist to appear in factories, plants, and branch houses throughout the United States, Mexico and Europe.[43][44] Prior to her work with John Deere, she participated in the Affiliate Artists program, serving from 1974 to 1976 as Affiliate Artist for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, [45] widening the audience for classical music by presenting informal concerts at unconventional venues.

In 1982, Nissman was the featured performer in the first Gracht (Canal) concert held in Amsterdam on the Prinsengracht and attended by 8,000 people.[46][47] The Prinsengracht concerts have remained a popular summer tradition, with audiences arriving on foot or in their boats to listen.[48]

For the 1996 Kennedy Center 25th Anniversary Gala Concert, broadcast on public television, Nissman performed two numbers arranged for ten pianos, alongside pianists Leonard Slatkin (who also conducted the ensemble), David Buechner, Cy Coleman, Joseph Kalichstein, Peter Nero, David Hyde Pierce, Peter Schickele, Jeffrey Siegel, and Alicia Witt.[49]

Books, Writings and Editions (selected)

2016: (Work in progress) Prokofiev and the Piano: A Performer's View

2015: Editor of the Critical Edition of Ginastera's Second Piano Concerto [50]

2015: Contributor to The Pianist’s Craft 2, published by Rowman & Littlefield and edited by Richard P. Anderson: “Remembering Alberto Ginastera” [51]

2014: Contributor to "Understanding Bartók" symposium in March/April 2014 issue of International Piano magazine (UK) [52]

2013: Contributor to "Prokofiev's Pianism" symposium in July/August 2013 issue of International Piano magazine (UK) [53]

2011: Contributor to The Pianist’s Craft, published by Scarecrow Press and edited by Richard P. Anderson: “Sergei Prokofiev, A Man Misunderstood” [54]

2007: Author of "Remembering Ginastera" for Piano Today magazine [55][56]

2002: Author of Bartók and the Piano: A Performer’s View, published by Scarecrow Press with a full-length CD of selected Bartók works performed by the author [57]

Discography (selected)

References

  1. ↑ Piano concerto repertoire of Barbara Nissman (as of 30-Dec-2015)
  2. ↑ "Nissman Debuts" (Blog Berlin1969.com)
  3. ↑ "Distinguished Graduates" (Phil. H.S. for Girls website)
  4. ↑ Lynn René Bayley, Fanfare (quoted at ArkivMusic.com)
  5. ↑ "Little Orchestra Society in Liebermann Premiere, New York Times, April 23, 1985
  6. ↑ Barbara Nissman at Steinway Hall, June 2014 (YouTube.com)
  7. ↑ "2013 SMTD Commencement Award Winners Announced" (U. of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre, & Dance website)
  8. ↑ "Athena Award" (Michigan Alumni Association website)
  9. ↑ "Hall of Fame" (U. of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre and Dance website)
  10. ↑ Rachel Pleasant, "Hall of Legends", Steinway & Sons 150th Anniversary Commemorative Publication, 2003, page 130
  11. ↑ Rachel Pleasant, "Hall of Legends", Steinway & Sons 150th Anniversary Commemorative Publication, 2003, pp. 108-143
  12. ↑ Governor’s Arts Award Winners 1999 - Present (W. Virginia Division of Culture and History website)
  13. ↑ Steve Schwartz, "ClassicalNet Review," 2005 (Classical.net website)
  14. ↑ Schwartz-Kates, Alberto Ginastera, A Research & Information Guide, page xxiv (Sainsbury's e-books samples website)
  15. ↑ Chicago S.O. Radio Broadcast, 1-Nov-1990 (THEODORE, Online Catalog of the ROSENTHAL ARCHIVES of the CHICAGO S.O.)
  16. ↑ NY Philharmonic Performance History Archives, Dec. 10-11, 1987
  17. ↑ BBC Radio 3 'Composer of the Week', Alberto Ginastera
  18. ↑ U-M School of Music presents Viva Ginastera Festival; Dec. 6-11, 2011
  19. ↑ Nissman Plays Ginastera: The Three Piano Concertos at ArkivMusic.com
  20. ↑ Jessica Duchen review, BBC Music Magazine, Jan. 20, 2012
  21. ↑ Boosey & Hawkes, Ginastera Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 39 (1972)
  22. ↑ Mark Swed, "Making Pianistic History with Prokofiev", New York Times, Jan. 29, 1989
  23. ↑ B. Nissman BBC TV perf. of Prokofiev 10th sta. (1989)
  24. ↑ "Notes and Editorial Reviews," ArkivMusic.com
  25. ↑ David Nice review, BBC Music Magazine, Jan. 20, 2012
  26. ↑ James Buescher, "Saved by an Iron Curtain," Lancaster Online, Sep. 11, 2013
  27. ↑ Robert Cummings, "Artist Biography," ALLMUSIC.com
  28. ↑ Noëlle Mann and Tom Sutcliffe, "Prokofiev and America," Goldsmiths College, University of London
  29. ↑ "Music of Serge Prokofiev," The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University
  30. ↑ "News and Events", Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, April 6, 2015
  31. ↑ Daniel Jaffé, Sergey Prokofiev (20th Century Composers), Phaidon Press, 2008
  32. ↑ "Sergei Prokofiev Recommended Discs," BBC Music Magazine, Dec. 2008, p. 62
  33. ↑ David Thompson, "Inspiring Confidence," Music & Vision website
  34. ↑ John von Rhein, "Recordings," Chicago Tribune, 5-Oct-2003]
  35. ↑ "PIANIST BARBARA NISSMAN IN RECITAL IN BERKELEY MARCH 21, MASTERCLASS MARCH 22" (pianoworld.com website)
  36. ↑ Elena Lacheva, "Pianist Barbara Nissman Performs for AIDS Cause," The Oberlin Review, March 3, 2006
  37. ↑ "Awareness, Education and the Arts," Oberlin Alumni Magazine, vol. 101, no. 4, Spring 2006
  38. ↑ "An Evening Celebrating Dr. Arthur Ammann" (sciencehumanitydiscovery.com website)
  39. ↑ Amy Carboneau, "Walden Woods Steinway Celebrates Thoreau," Jan. 3, 2011 (wickedlocal.com website)
  40. ↑ "Walden Piano," (Silas Kopf Woodworking website)
  41. ↑ "WALDEN IN NEW YORK" (Barbara Nissman website)
  42. ↑ "Athena Award to Music Alumnae," Music at Michigan, vol. 15, no. 1, pg. 3
  43. ↑ Roxane Orgill, "Tractors, Pianos Mix," Milwaukee Journal, Jan. 28, 1979
  44. ↑ "Intriguing Michigan Individuals," Michigan Alumnus, November 1979, pg. 28
  45. ↑ "Alumni Society News", 'Music at Michigan', Vol. 29, no. 2, Spring 1996, page 45
  46. ↑ Abner Katzman, "Pianist Brings Her Music to the People," Sarasota Herald, Aug. 26, 1982
  47. ↑ "Art People in the News," Umbrella, vol. 5, no. 5 (1982)
  48. ↑ "Prinsengracht Concert 2015," Style Amsterdam website, Aug. 18, 2015
  49. ↑ "The 100 Flying Fingers", 1996 Kennedy Center Gala (archived at YouTube)
  50. ↑ Ginastera: Piano Concerto No. 2 op. 39 (1972) 35' for piano and orchestra (Boosey & Hawkes website)
  51. ↑ The Pianist’s Craft 2, edited by Richard P. Anderson (Rowman & Littlefield website)
  52. ↑ International Piano, Issue 0024 Mar/Apr 2014 (International Piano back issues webpage)
  53. ↑ International Piano, Issue 0020 Jul/Aug 2013 (International Piano back issues webpage)
  54. ↑ The Pianist’s Craft, edited by Richard P. Anderson (Amazon website)
  55. ↑ "Remembering Alberto Ginastera," Piano Today, July 1, 2007 (HighBeam Research website)
  56. ↑ "Remembering Alberto Ginastera," reprinted from Piano Today - July 1, 2007 (Barbara Nissman's website)
  57. ↑ Bartok and the Piano: A Performer’s View by Barbara Nissman (Scarecrow Press, 2002) (Rowman & Littlefield website)

External links

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