*Barbara Nissman*	Described as “a pianist of a bygone era,” Barbara Nissman continues the grand bravura tradition of romantic pianism, making it relevant to our century. Her recordings of twentieth-century composers, Prokofiev, Ginastera and Bartók are considered “definitive,” and her ongoing series for the Pierian label of the nineteenth-century composers Liszt, Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, and also Rachmaninoff, has garnered critical praise. “One of the last pianists in the grand Romantic tradition of Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and Rubinstein,” Barbara Nissman connects the souls of the composers of the past to the lives of today’s listener. 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, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Leonard Slatkin.

Barbara Nissman

Described as “a pianist of a bygone era,” Barbara Nissman continues the grand bravura tradition of romantic pianism, making it relevant to our century. Her recordings of twentieth-century composers, Prokofiev, Ginastera and Bartók are considered “definitive,” and her ongoing series for the Pierian label of the nineteenth-century composers Liszt, Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, and also Rachmaninoff, has garnered critical praise.

“One of the last pianists in the grand Romantic tradition of Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and Rubinstein,” Barbara Nissman connects the souls of the composers of the past to the lives of today’s listener.

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, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Leonard Slatkin.

Ms. Nissman has long been associated with the music of Argentine composer, Alberto Ginastera, and is the dedicatee of the composer's final work, the Sonata No. 3. 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. She will present the premiere of his Concierto Argentino in 2010 with Leonard Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Both Gramophone and the American Record Guide chose her Ginastera recording as one of the best releases in 1989. Recently, Barbara was invited by the BBC to co-host a five-part radio series that featured Ginastera as Composer-of-the-Week on Radio 3.

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 Sonatas made available on compact disc. 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. BBC Music Magazine in their recent cover story on Prokofiev recommended Nissman’s recordings as the best recordings of Prokofiev’s piano music.

Barbara Nissman recently appeared on stage with Don Henley of the Eagles and Billy Joel, performing on the “Walden Steinway” in a gala fundraiser for the Walden Woods project, held at Lincoln Center. She was also one of the participants with Leonard Slatkin at the Kennedy Center’s 25th Anniversary Gala Concert that was broadcast on PBS Television. She has also been involved with the Robert James Frascino AIDS Foundation benefit concert series, “A Concerted Effort” since 2002. To date these concerts have raised well over one million dollars for AIDS service organizations worldwide.

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. Other releases on the Pierian label include: Chopin by Nissman, Beethoven by Nissman, Schumann by Nissman and Brahms by Nissman. Two volumes devoted to the music of Rachmaninoff have just been released, along with the first two volumes of a new series, Recital Favorites 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 & Friends," based on the series she had filmed for BBC Television. These informal programs, focusing on the music of one composer, combine music with casual dialogue, enhancing the listening experience of the listener, no matter their musical background. Her opening program of the series features the music of "Franz Liszt, The Elvis of the Keyboard." In collaboration with the Greenbrier Valley Theater, she has adapted this program for children. The film will be used in the public schools throughout the State of West Virginia, and will also be available in all of West Virginia’s libraries.

Performer, writer, lecturer and frequent guest artist/teacher, Barbara Nissman has toured and given master classes throughout the United States, Europe and the Far East, New Zealand, Russia and South America. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Michigan. She received the Stanley Medal upon graduating from the School Music in 1966, and was honored by the University 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. In 2008, she received the Governor's Distinguished Service to the Arts Award from the State of West Virginia. She now calls West Virginia home and lives on a farm in the Allegheny Mountains.

(April 2009)