Well known for her definitive recordings of the complete piano music (solo and chamber) of Alberto Ginastera, and the complete piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev, recently reissued on Pierian Records, *Barbara Nissman*’s roots remain within the nineteenth century. Hailed by a New York critic as “one of the last pianists in the grand Romantic tradition of Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and Rubinstein” her connection to romantic pianism reaffirms her approach to the twentieth-century pianism of Prokofiev and Ginastera.
Barbara Nissman’s international career was personally launched by Eugene Ormandy who had previously engaged her as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. She has performed with the leading orchestras of Europe and America including the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Munich Philharmonic; in the US she has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the National Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra among others. She has worked with some of the major conductors of our time including Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo Muti and Leonard Slatkin.
In 1989 she made history by becoming the first pianist to perform the complete piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev in a series of three recitals both in New York and in London. Her recordings of this repertoire represented the first complete set of Prokofiev Sonatas made available on compact disc. Scheduled for release during 2004 is Nissman’s second book, Prokofiev and the Piano: A Performer’s View. A noted Prokofiev scholar and authority in her own right, Ms. Nissman was invited by the former Soviet Union to travel to Moscow and collaborate with leading Soviet musicians on a detailed study of the Prokofiev manuscripts housed in the Central State Archives. In commemoration of the composer’s 100th birthday, she performed the complete cycle of his piano sonatas throughout Europe and the US. In April ’98, Ms. Nissman was invited by the Moscow Conservatory for concerts and master classes on Prokofiev; she also presented master classes at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. For the 50th anniversary of Prokofiev’s death in 2003, she performed all five Piano Concertos throughout Europe and the United States as well as presenting a series of lecture-recitals devoted to a better understanding of his music.
Also well known for her writings and interpretations of the music of Alberto Ginastera, Barbara Nissman is the dedicatee of Ginastera’s final work, the Third Piano Sonata. In 1976 she was invited by the composer to play his Piano Concerto No. 1 with l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in celebration of his sixtieth birthday. Both Gramophone and the American Record Guide chose her Ginastera recording as one of the best releases in 1989.
Barbara Nissman, along with Leonard Slatkin, was one of the participants at the recent Kennedy Center 25th Anniversary Gala Concert which was broadcast on PBS Television. In addition to performing and recording, she has contributed numerous articles to music publications. Liszt by Nissman, a recent release for the Pierian label, features the Sonata in b minor, the Six Paganini Etudes and other solo works. Bartók by Nissman includes the first performance of Bartók’s unknown 1898 Sonata that Barbara discovered in the Morgan Library’s manuscript collection while writing Bartók and the Piano: A Performer’s View, recently published with a cd insert by Scarecrow Press. Just released on the Pierian label are two new recordings: Chopin by Nissman and Beethoven by Nissman.
She is frequently invited to present master-classes at American and European universities (most recently at the Royal Academy of Music in London and Canterbury University, New Zealand) and has presented two-week master courses for pianists at the Federal University in Salvador, Brazil. Barbara also initiated a music-lecture series, “Barbara and Friends,” based on the series she had filmed for BBC Television. These informal programs, focusing on the music of one composer, combine music with chat, enhancing the listening experience of both the educated and uneducated listener. Her opening program of the series features the music of “Franz Liszt, The Elvis Presley of the Keyboard.”
Performer, writer, lecturer and frequent guest artist/teacher, Barbara Nissman has toured and given master classes throughout the United States, Europe, the Far East, New Zealand, and South America. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Michigan and was honored in 1983 with their prestigious Athena Award, given annually to an outstanding alumna, as well as the School of Music’s 1996 Citation of Merit Award. She now calls West Virginia home and lives on a farm in the Allegheny Mountains.
