Barbara Nissman Piano   

Barbara Nissman is best known for her performances of the piano music of Prokofiev and Alberto Ginastera. She has written extensively about Prokofiev's works, conducted master classes and given lectures on them, and recorded all the sonatas and concertos. Nissman has also lavished attention on Ginastera, a close friend who dedicated his 1982 Third Sonata to her. But Nissman has also performed works by Liszt, Rachmaninov, Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and many others. She has concertized throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and New Zealand, and appeared as soloist with the major orchestras of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, and with many of the leading European orchestras. Nissman was host of a 16-week BBC television series entitled Barbara and Friends, which also appeared on American public television stations. She has made numerous recordings, most of them issued on the Pierian label. Barbara Nissman was born in Philadelphia, PA, on December 31, 1944. She studied music at the University of Michigan, where her teachers included György Sándor.

Nissman met Ginastera in 1969 when she was performing his First Piano Concerto at UM's contemporary music festival. 1971 was a pivotal year for her: she went on a Eugene Ormandy-sponsored concert tour of Europe, and then debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Thor Johnson in Ann Arbor, MI, with the Rachmaninov Paganini Rhapsody.

In 1976, at the invitation of Ginastera, Nissman performed his First Piano Concerto at his 60th birthday celebrations in Argentina. Nissman would soon turn to Prokofiev, a composer whose music she knew from her student years. From the 1980s, in fact, she has been among his most ardent advocates. In 1988 she recorded all the sonatas and other piano works for Newport Classic, which issued the recordings in 1989 to general acclaim. During the 1991-1992 season, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Prokofiev's birth, Nissman performed cycles of the composer's piano sonatas throughout the U.S. and Europe. In 1998 she traveled to the Moscow Conservatory to present master classes and concerts of Prokofiev's works.

Nissman's book Bartók and The Piano was published by Scarecrow Press in 2002. The following year Nissman made another Prokofiev tour of the U.S. and Europe, this time performing the five concertos with major orchestras. In 2008 Nissman, who resides in West Virginia, received that state's Governor's Distinguished Service to the Arts Award. Her recordings include the 2011 Recital Favorites, Vol. 6, a collection of works by Ravel, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, and others, on Pierian.

© Robert Cummings, Rovi