Biography
Friends call Jon Kimura Parker “Jackie,” and this pianist not only explores an unusually broad spectrum of music but also derives real pleasure from the act of performance. His playful side surfaces in concert when he appears in a Star Trek: The Next Generation costume or inserts the theme from The Simpsons into a cadenza.
Born December 25, 1959, and raised in Vancouver, Parker studied with his uncle Edward J. Parker alongside his brother, pianist Jamie Parker. Additional training took him to the Victoria Conservatory of Music, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Vancouver Academy of Music, and the University of British Columbia before he worked with Adele Marcus at Juilliard. Early on he expressed admiration for a wide array of artists—Arthur Rubinstein, Elton John, and especially his idol Oscar Peterson—sometimes programming the latter’s pieces as recital encores.
Winning the 1984 Leeds International Piano Competition opened an international solo career that has carried him across continents with repertoire extending from Mozart to Bartók and present-day composers. In 1995 he joined an AmeriCares relief mission to Bosnia and performed a New Year’s Eve concert with the Sarajevo Philharmonic in an unheated hall. Reviewers regularly cite both the energy and enthusiasm of his playing and the color of his tone together with its technical command. Chamber music and works for multiple pianos appear on his programs with equal frequency.
He belongs to Piano Six, a collective of Canadian pianists—Janina Fialkowska, Angela Hewitt, Angela Cheng, Marc-André Hamelin, and André Laplante—that brings live performances and teaching to remote regions of the country. Festival engagements include the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, where his wife, violinist Aloysia Friedmann, serves as artistic director. When not traveling, Parker teaches at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and occasionally surprises audiences with a Beethoven concerto, a song by Alanis Morissette, or the X-Files theme.
Named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1999, he joined the chamber ensemble Off the Shore in 2015 with Stewart Copeland on drums, Yoon Kwon on violin, Marlon Martinez on bass, and Judd Miller on electronic valve instrument. His recordings have appeared on the CBC Records, Telarc, and Naxos labels. With brother Jamie and cousin Ian Parker he released a 2006 CBC Records album of Mozart concertos for one, two, or three pianos, and in 2020 he accompanied Cho-Liang Lin on the Naxos disc Three American Violin Sonatas.
Born December 25, 1959, and raised in Vancouver, Parker studied with his uncle Edward J. Parker alongside his brother, pianist Jamie Parker. Additional training took him to the Victoria Conservatory of Music, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Vancouver Academy of Music, and the University of British Columbia before he worked with Adele Marcus at Juilliard. Early on he expressed admiration for a wide array of artists—Arthur Rubinstein, Elton John, and especially his idol Oscar Peterson—sometimes programming the latter’s pieces as recital encores.
Winning the 1984 Leeds International Piano Competition opened an international solo career that has carried him across continents with repertoire extending from Mozart to Bartók and present-day composers. In 1995 he joined an AmeriCares relief mission to Bosnia and performed a New Year’s Eve concert with the Sarajevo Philharmonic in an unheated hall. Reviewers regularly cite both the energy and enthusiasm of his playing and the color of his tone together with its technical command. Chamber music and works for multiple pianos appear on his programs with equal frequency.
He belongs to Piano Six, a collective of Canadian pianists—Janina Fialkowska, Angela Hewitt, Angela Cheng, Marc-André Hamelin, and André Laplante—that brings live performances and teaching to remote regions of the country. Festival engagements include the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, where his wife, violinist Aloysia Friedmann, serves as artistic director. When not traveling, Parker teaches at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and occasionally surprises audiences with a Beethoven concerto, a song by Alanis Morissette, or the X-Files theme.
Named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1999, he joined the chamber ensemble Off the Shore in 2015 with Stewart Copeland on drums, Yoon Kwon on violin, Marlon Martinez on bass, and Judd Miller on electronic valve instrument. His recordings have appeared on the CBC Records, Telarc, and Naxos labels. With brother Jamie and cousin Ian Parker he released a 2006 CBC Records album of Mozart concertos for one, two, or three pianos, and in 2020 he accompanied Cho-Liang Lin on the Naxos disc Three American Violin Sonatas.
Albums
