World-renowned pianist Jonathan Biss has built an extraordinary career as a performer, teacher, and leading voice in how we think about classical music today. Known for interpretations that combine technical mastery with deep intellectual and emotional inquiry, Biss has helped reshape contemporary engagement with the repertoire, from his landmark exploration of Beethoven’s piano sonatas to his widely read essays on music, culture, and society. As a new faculty member at The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School, he brings a rare blend of artistic rigour, curiosity, and moral seriousness to the classroom. In the following Q&A with the RCM, Biss reflects on performance, pedagogy, individuality, and the enduring power of music as a form of human communication.
Your performances are known for their depth and curiosity. How do you balance technical precision with emotional narrative when approaching a new piece?
The narrative is the point. If a performance doesn’t have a compelling and convincing emotional arc – one that says something powerful, direct, and truthful about the music – it has failed. Technique, while vital, is just a tool that allows you to find and convey the core of the music.
You’ve done immersive work on Beethoven’s piano sonatas, including recording the complete cycle and offering a free online lecture series. What keeps you returning to Beethoven’s music as both performer and scholar?
Beethoven’s music is compelling in a way that nothing else I know is. And I mean that literally: I feel compelled to play him, listen to him, study him. It doesn’t feel like a choice. His music, apart from its imagination and innovation and unparalleled structural brilliance, seems to come from his insatiable need to express himself in this medium. That need is palpable and bloody powerful, for the player or the listener.
Your current and recent programs often pair canonical works with contemporary compositions (e.g., Schubert with new works). How do you see this dialogue shaping the future of classical programming?
While it’s undeniable that the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were a kind of golden era for classical music, with a handful of composers producing thousands of works of staggering beauty and spirituality, this is a living art form. It must be a living art form. There are so many people writing hugely imaginative music today, and every player should be interested in it. Playing new music has opened my mind and enriched me on many levels, and it has given me some insight into the creative process, which I try to then bring to my work on older music. As a question not just of programming, but of approach, I think it’s very important to view all this music on a continuum. There isn’t “old music” and “new music.” There’s just good music and…let’s say less good music.
Your students and colleagues often talk about your thoughtful approach to teaching. What do you see as the core responsibility of a teacher in today’s musical landscape?
That’s nice to hear! Teaching music is a funny endeavor, because so much of it is deeply subjective. The job of the teacher is to help the student become the best version of themselves, and to give them a framework for how to think about music. Musicians ought to be lifelong students – you have to hold on to your curiosity and your sense of wonder. If the student-teacher relationship has worked well, at the end of it, the student should feel more confident doing that work without guidance.
How has your own training, particularly with Leon Fleisher, shaped the way you teach today?
I still think about Leon almost every day. If I’m honest, I don’t remember all that many specifics of what he said, but his intensity and his integrity (and the intensity of his integrity!) made a gigantic impression on me. I would love to be able to be able to convey to my students that making meaningful music has a moral component – that one has a deep responsibility to study and play these pieces with total commitment. That is a lesson I learned from Leon and that I carry with me
In your experience, what is one misconception young pianists have about performance, and how do you guide them past it?
I think we all – maybe young pianists above all – are very influenced by the recordings we listen to, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that performances should sound like those recordings. But that’s a very constricting view. A performance is a living, breathing thing: it cannot and should not be like a recording, or like any other performance, whether that means the one you heard someone else give or the one you yourself played the week before. Young pianists feel a lot of pressure, and that means they prioritize not doing anything “wrong.” But trying to avoid doing something wrong will not lead you to something meaningfully “right.”
You write beautifully about music and culture beyond performance — from essays to books to New York Times guest pieces. How does writing influence your art of playing, and vice versa?
I’m honestly not sure. Making music is so instinctual – almost like breathing. One of the great (and difficult) things about teaching is that it forces you to find words for those instinctual things, which tends to deepen your relationship to them. It’s the same with writing: The process of writing an essay often clarifies my thoughts on a subject, which were previously all jumbled in my brain. But as a writer, whatever the topic, music is always my lens. I’m not really wired to see the world in any other way.
Your New York Times essay “The Quest for Perfection Is Stunting Our Society” (and others) wrestles with broader human themes. How do issues like mental health and vulnerability intersect with classical performance today?
We’re starting to have a more open conversation about mental health, generally and in the performance world. This is great. The less great thing is that a convergence of factors – social media, the climate crisis, political instability, an increasingly difficult professional landscape – is making young musicians feel more fragile and anxious. The best thing we can do is to keep talking about it. Openness will not solve every problem, but you cannot solve anything without it.
What changes or innovations in music education and performance do you hope to see in the next decade?
Innovations are for young people! My hope is that those of us guiding them will encourage them to think of themselves as ambassadors for music, rather than as entrepreneurs, a word that gets used a lot in conservatories these days. I want young musicians to figure out what matters deeply to them, and then find a way to share that with the world. If that’s the basis, I’m sure they will innovate in all sorts of positive ways.
As a faculty member at The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School, how do you imagine fostering individuality and authenticity in your students?
I’m constantly telling students that they should have the courage to make their own mistakes, rather than repeat someone else’s. You have to keep trying different things, and risk failure every day. Only that will lead you to authenticity. As for individuality, I don’t believe it’s the goal. You open your ears and listen to the music – nonstop. If you do that for long enough, it will lead you somewhere interesting. If you are honest, you will inevitably be individual, because no one else can be you, and you cannot be anyone else. Trying to be individual is just a recipe for self-consciousness.
What’s one idea about music you wish more audiences understood?
It is the purest and deepest form of human communication.