Guest Artist Recital: Oliver Jia, piano

Wednesday, November 9, 2022
7:30 p.m.
Allendale Campus
Alumni, Community, Faculty, Staff, Students

Described as an artist with “incomparable color and beauty of sound” (Jan Popis, Chopin
Gazeta: 2005), Swedish-American pianist Oliver Jia has performed for audiences all over the
world, and actively appears in concerts on three major continents. With a repertoire of dozens of
concerti in addition to over two hundred solo and chamber works, Oliver made his official debut
at Isaac Stern Auditorium in Carnegie Hall under the baton of the late Maestro James DePreist,
performing Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto no. 5 with the Juilliard Orchestra.

As a testament to his wide-ranging performance career, Oliver has performed with the Orchestra
of St Luke’s, the Fort Worth Symphony, the China National Symphony, and the Juilliard
Orchestra, among others. He has made solo and concerti appearances at Alice Tully Hall at
Lincoln Center, the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, Royal Dublin Society, and the
Manhattan Center, as well as the premier concert halls in mainland China. Other notable events
include performance tours and interviews in northern Italy (Bologna, Senigallia), China
(numerous cities, including Beijing, Nanjing, Suzhou, Yangzhou), North Carolina Triangle Area
(chamber concerts in Raleigh, Durham, etc) as well as individual recitals in Warsaw, Stockholm,
Dublin, Hastings, and other European cities.

In addition to his solo engagements, Oliver is an engaged chamber musician and has collaborated
with numerous chamber ensembles, especially in the US region. He is also busy as a

collaborative pianist, and has accompanied numerous string, woodwind, and vocal musicians in
various projects. As a teacher, Oliver has maintained a private studio for two decades, teaching
both solo piano and chamber music. From 2017-2019, he was a member of the piano faculty at
the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.

Finally, Oliver is strongly involved in musical research. As part of his doctoral dissertation,
Oliver presented a two-hour lecture recital on the complete set of Frédéric Chopin’s monumental
Études, complete with a performance and a talk on the subject. In addition, he has written several
research papers; these pertain to unique aspects in musicology that focus on topics not often
featured in the mainstream of academia publications. These include “Josquin des Prez: A Study
in Counterpoint” (New Haven, CT. 2014), “Transcriptions: The Piano as a Broadcasting
Instrument” (New York, NY. 2012), and “War of the Romantics: Artistic Ideals in Conflict” (New
York, NY. 2006).

Oliver was born in Nanking to a family with significant music backgrounds (his grandparents
served as distinguished Peking Opera directors for decades), and spent his entire childhood in
Stockholm. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The University of Michigan, an
Artist Diploma from Yale University, and Master of Music & Bachelor of Music degrees from
The Juilliard School. His major instructors have included Logan Skelton, Peter Frankl, Jerome
Lowenthal, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Oxana Yablonskaya, and Paul van Ness.

Oliver has served as Assistant Professor of Piano at Bilkent University since 2019.

Location Information

Sherman van Solkema Recital Hall
Haas Center for Performing Arts

Download parking map for the Allendale Campus

Contact Information

Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance

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This event was added to the calendar by Bridgett Vanderhoof (vandebri@gvsu.edu) on Monday, September 12, 2022 and was last updated on Thursday, October 6, 2022 at 2:08 p.m.