Jan Lisiecki

Born on March 23, 1995, in Calgary, Alberta, Jan Lisiecki grew up in a Polish-Canadian household and was raised to speak both languages with equal ease. His parents had no musical background, yet instructors spotted his ability early and urged them to nurture it; as a result he started piano lessons at age five and appeared as a concerto soloist only four years later. He dislikes the term prodigy, believing it obscures the disciplined effort that shaped his initial accomplishments. By twelve he had performed for the first time at the Chopin and His Europe Festival, an event that soon became an annual fixture for him. He accelerated through four grades at Calgary’s Western Canada High School and received a full scholarship to the Glenn Gould School in Toronto, where Marc Durand guided his studies.

Pianist Howard Shelley encountered him at a festival in Manchester, England, and subsequently led the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra in performances of Chopin’s concertos with Lisiecki as soloist in both 2008 and 2009. A last-minute series of four concerts replacing Nelson Freire in France broadened his reputation there, while an equally fortuitous substitution for Martha Argerich opened the door to a prominent slot at the BBC Proms in 2013 and to engagements with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra. By the time he stepped onto the Carnegie Hall stage in 2016 he already possessed a substantial résumé. In 2020 he ventured into song repertoire, accompanying baritone Matthias Goerne in recitals and recordings of Beethoven lieder.

These milestones, combined with his youthful appearance, prompted Deutsche Grammophon to sign him in 2010 when he was still only fifteen. Lisiecki has gravitated toward Chopin and Mozart, each of whom attained wide recognition while still in his teens. His debut album for the label in 2011 presented two Mozart concertos and was followed by a recording of Chopin’s etudes; critics responded by evaluating the performances on their own merits rather than merely forecasting future promise. Releases of Schumann and Chopin works for piano and orchestra appeared in 2016 and 2017, respectively. In 2019 a live cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, recorded after he replaced the indisposed Murray Perahia, was issued, and in 2021 he recorded Chopin’s complete nocturnes for Deutsche Grammophon.