Joshua Pierce

Pianist Joshua Pierce initially made his name as an expert interpreter of the music of John Cage; however, he has branched into the piano traditional repertoire with considerable success. A native of New York City, Pierce was enrolled in the pre-college division at Juilliard through the intervention of NBC musical director Samuel Chotzinoff; in time, he would study with Artur Balsam, Victor Babin, Arthur Loesser, and Dorothy Taubman. He first became known to record buyers through his recording of Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano, which appeared on the Tomato label in 1977. Since then Pierce has recorded for more than two-dozen labels, particularly for Vox, Albany, Wergo (who picked up the Tomato releases) Sony Classical, and MSR Classics. It is said that the album Joshua Pierce Live at the Dom/Alternativa Festival 2000 was the first album by a Western artist to be recorded and released in post-Soviet Russia. Pierce is frequently featured as a guest artist on National Public Radio and has played in concert just about everywhere. He is closely associated with the American Festival of Microtonal Music, and Pierce gained acclaim in 2003 through his advocacy of the microtonal piano piece Revelation by Michael Harrison. For 25 years, Pierce served as one-half of the Joshua Pierce/Dorothy Jonas piano duo.