JENNY LIN – Guest Pianist

Jenny Lin is admired for her adventurous programming and charismatic stage presence as well as for her ability to combine classical and contemporary literature. She has been acclaimed for "remarkable technical command" and her "gift for melodic flow" by The New York Times. Gail Wein in The Washington Post praises "Lin’s confident fingers…[and] spectacular technique….” Gramophone Magazine has hailed her as "an exceptionally sensitive pianist".

Allan Kozinn writes (21 August 2011) of Lin’s New York Mostly Mozart Festival recital:

Ms. Lin played her Mozart (and Mozart-inspired) selections with elegance and clarity, but she was most in her element in her Stravinsky pieces, a dazzling, incisive interpretation of the early Four Études (Op. 7, from 1908) and a thrill-filled, virtuosic performance of the final three sections of The Firebird, in Guido Agosti’s composer-approved transcription.

Lin's recent orchestral engagements have included Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with the American Symphony Orchestra; Ernest Bloch's Concerto Grosso No. 1 with SWR Rundfunkorchester; the world premiere of Stefano Gervasoni's Piano Concerto with Orchestra Sinfonica Nationale della RAI; and Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan.

Her concerts have taken her to Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Kennedy Center, Miller Theatre, MoMA, Whitney Museum, Le Poisson Rouge, the National Gallery of Art, and throughout Europe and the Far East, as well as to prominent festivals: BAM's Next Wave, MATA, Spoleto Festival USA, the Chopin Festival in Austria, Ars Musica in Belgium, the Shanghai New Music Festival in China, and the Millennium Festival in Spain.

Lin's extensive discography includes critically acclaimed recordings on Hänssler Classic, Steinway & Sons, eOne, BIS, and Sunrise records. Since 2000, she has been represented on over twenty albums. Allan Kozinn called her disc of Federico Mompou’s Musica Callada “…beautifully recorded….”

Jenny Lin, an eloquent pianist whose tastes more typically lead her to new music of a wilder stripe, gives a magnificently serene, probing account of these works. She draws you so fully into Mompou’s world that even his most subtle coloristic gradations seem clearly drawn.

Classicstoday praised her 24 Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 by Dmitri Shostakovich “…hands down the finest version of this massive work”. It was voted Best of 2009 by The Washington Post. Gramophone reported on her CD of Valentin Silvestrov: "Lin is an ideal exponent of music whose superfine dynamic and textural contrasts create their own expressive intensity".

Lin is the central figure in Cooking for Jenny (Elemental Films), a musical documentary portraying her journey to the north of Spain and meeting with composer Javier López de Guereña for the preparation of the world premiere of his piano concerto ZAHARA. She is also one of the featured artists on Speaking for Myself, a film about Manhattan as seen through the eyes of eight contemporary artists (Pheasant Eye Productions).

Born in Taiwan and raised in Austria, Lin studied with Noel Flores at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, with Julian Martin at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. Jenny Lin has also worked with Leon Fleisher, and Richard Goode.  She holds a bachelor's degree in German Literature from The Johns Hopkins University and currently resides in New York City.

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