Ursula Oppens

"What makes Oppens a compelling musician... is her probing intellect and curiosity; her ability to clarify what she perceives." ~ Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"Oppens has always excelled in densely packed music that would make most pianists cower... she applied equal amounts of energy and subtlety, finding the muscle and poetic heart in the music even as she sailed nimbly through the keyboard extremities." ~ Cleveland Plain Dealer

Ursula Oppens has won equal renown as a persuasive interpreter of classical repertoire and a tireless champion of contemporary music. Her performances are marked by a compelling grasp of the composer's musical intentions and a powerful command of the keyboard's resources. In the 2002/03 season, she continues to appear as guest soloist and in chamber music in major musical centers and festivals throughout the United States and Europe.

Highlights of the current and recent seasons include residencies and performances at Tanglewood, Aspen, Santa Fe and other international music festivals; the New York premiere at Cooper Union of Luciano Berio's Piano Sonata written for Ms. Oppens; the Henry Cowell Piano Concerto in San Francisco and Dublin; Beethoven's Concerto No. 5 ("Emperor") with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl; several chamber music performances with the Pacifica Quartet; and Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion with Jerome Lowenthal at the Music Academy of the West. She performed Lou Harrison's Piano Concerto with the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and at the Ruhr Festival with Dennis Russell Davies and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra on the occasion of the late composer's 85th birthday celebration. Other orchestral engagements include the Copland Piano Concerto in Cuba with the Havana Orchestra directed by Bernard Rubinstein, the Rachmaninoff Paganini Variations with the New Hampshire and Memphis symphonies, and a concerto by contemporary Korean composer Unsuk Chin with the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester in
Berlin.

At Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall she presided over "The Carnegie Hall Millennium Piano Book," in which she and university students from around the country performed the world premiere of ten short pieces intended for the intermediate-level pianist. The works were commissioned by Carnegie Hall from ten leading composers from around the world, and were simultaneously published by Boosey and Hawkes in a volume which included a CD of Ms. Oppens performing the ten pieces.

Ms. Oppens has presented recitals at New York's 92nd Street Y, Town Hall, and Metropolitan Museum of Art; at Chicago's Orchestra Hall; and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In 1994 she was presented on Carnegie Hall's Keyboard Virtuoso Series and appeared there again in 1997. She often collaborates with chamber groups including the Juilliard, Vermeer, Mendelssohn string quartets, and joined the Arditti Quartet for the Library of Congress premiere and tours in the United States and Europe of Elliott Carter's Piano Quintet. The work was commissioned by the Library of Congress and a consortium of presenters to honor Mr. Carter's 90th birthday. Other activities include masterclasses at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo and at the Music Teachers National Association Conference in Minneapolis.

Throughout her career, an enduring commitment to integrating new music into regular concert programs has led Ms. Oppens to commission and premiere many new compositions. Among these are works by Anthony Davis, Elliott Carter, John Harbison, Tania Leon, György Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Tobias Picker, Frederic Rzewski, Lois Vierk, and Charles Wuorinen. She is a co-founder of Speculum Musicae, a performing group which has pioneered new music since 1971.

A native New Yorker, Ursula Oppens first studied piano with her mother, Edith Oppens, and continued with Leonard Shure and Guido Agosti. As an undergraduate at Radcliffe College, she studied English literature and economics, and received her Master's degree from the Juilliard School where she studied with Rosina Lhevinne and Felix Galimir. Ms. Oppens made her New York debut in 1970 under the auspices of Young Concert Artists, and was awarded first prize at the
Busoni International Piano Competition that same year. She was granted a diploma with honors from the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and in 1976 was the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant which led directly to her debut with the New York Philharmonic.

Ms. Oppens' discography clearly reflects her dedication to music of differing styles and periods. She has recorded a disc of Beethoven sonatas including Op. 106 ("Hammerklavier") and a two-CD set - "American Piano Music of Our Time" - with music by John Adams, Elliott Carter, and works written for her by Julius Hemphill and Conlon Nancarrow. She has recorded the Elliott Carter Piano Quintet with the Arditti Quartet, Joan Tower's Piano Concerto, and a disc of Schoenberg's vocal music with soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson. Ms. Oppens received Grammy nominations both for her recording of Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated and for "American Piano Music of Our Time," and can be heard on releases from more than a dozen labels including Angel, Audivis, Bridge, CBS Masterworks, CRI, Koch, and Nonesuch.

Ursula Oppens currently holds the position of the John Evans Distinguished Professor of Music at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.