Joseph Banowetz

GRAMMY-nominated American pianist Joseph Banowetz was heard as recitalist and orchestral soloist on five continents, with performances with such orchestras as the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the Moscow State Symphony, the Prague and Bratislava Radio Orchestras, the Budapest Symphony, the Barcelona Concert Society Orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony, the Beijing National Philharmonic, the Shanghai Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Seoul Philharmonic.

In December 2007 Banowetz’s recording of Balakirev’s works received two official GRAMMY nominations and his over thirty recordings contain a significant number of world premières, including first recordings of Anton Rubinstein solo piano works, all eight of Rubinstein’s piano and orchestral works, music of Sergey Taneyev (with Vladimir Ashkenazy as narrator), and compositions of Mily Balakirev, Leopold Godowsky and Paul Kletzki. Banowetz is also well-known as an author.

His book The Pianist’s Guide to Pedalling (Indiana University Press) has to date been printed in seven languages.

He was a graduate with a first prize from the Vienna Akademie für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, and his teachers included Carl Friedberg (a pupil of Clara Schumann) and György Sándor (a pupil of Bartók). In 2010 his recording of the Paul Kletzki Piano Concerto (Naxos 8.572190) received a GRAMMY nomination for “Best Instrumental Solo Performance With Orchestra”.