Orion Weiss

One of the most sought-after soloists and chamber music collaborators of his generation, Orion Weiss is regarded as a “brilliant pianist” (The New York Times) with “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post). He has performed with all of the major orchestras of North America, including Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic.

In February 2025, Weiss released Arc III, the final album in his recital trilogy, on First Hand Records. Weiss’s 2024-2025 performance schedule includes engagements with violinist James Ehnes, who joins Weiss for a return to London’s Wigmore Hall and for performances of the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Seattle. Among numerous engagements with U.S. orchestras, Weiss makes his David Geffen Hall debut in New York with American Symphony Orchestra. He performs Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Newport Classical in Rhode Island, among other recitals. He is featured in performances at Italy’s Teatro Marrucino Biglietteria and in the Great Artists Series at Washington University in St. Louis, on a tour with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at LaMusica Chamber Music Festival in Sarasota, Florida. Weiss also tours Japan, playing the complete Brahms Violin Sonatas with Akiko Suwanai and performs the complete Grieg Sonatas with James Ehnes in Bergen, Norway. Over the last year, Weiss made his return to Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led by Michael Tilson Thomas, and debuted with National Symphony Orchestra, led by Ken-David Masur. He also toured the United States and Asia with violinist Augustin Hadelich and performed at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Weiss performs regularly with Augustin Hadelich, as well as fellow violinists William Hagen and James Ehnes; pianists Michael Brown and Shai Wosner; and the Ariel, Parker, and Pacifica Quartets. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Weiss has appeared at venues and festivals including the Ravinia Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Mariinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg), Edinburgh International Festival, Schubert Club, Hong Kong Premiere Performances, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Lucerne Festival, Denver Friends of Chamber Music, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center’s Fortas Series, 92nd Street Y, and at summer music festivals including Bard, Santa Fe, Bridgehampton, Bravo! Vail, Sunriver, and Grand Teton, among many others.

Other recent highlights include a live-stream with Minnesota Orchestra; a performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; the release of his recording of Christopher Rouse’s Seeing, the first two installments of his critically acclaimed Arc recital trilogy; a recording of Korngold’s Left Hand concerto and other works with Leon Botstein and TON; and recordings of Gershwin’s complete works for piano and orchestra with Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and JoAnn Falletta.

Weiss can be heard on the Naxos, Telos, Bridge, First Hand, Yarlung, and Artek labels on recordings such as The Piano Protagonists with The Orchestra Now, led by Leon Botstein; a disc of Scarlatti Sonatas for Naxos; a solo recital disc of Bartók, Dvorák, and Prokofiev; Brahms Sonatas with violinist Arnaud Sussmann; a solo recital album of J.S. Bach, Scriabin, Mozart, and Carter; and a recital disc with cellist Julie Albers. In March 2022, First Hand Records released Arc I: Granados, Janáček, Scriabin – a recording exploring the omens and tension of the period preceding World War I. Gramophone Magazine praised the album as “expansive, colorful, and texturally varied.” Arc II, featuring the music of Ravel, Brahms, and Shostakovich, was released in November 2022. Arc III, featuring works by Brahms, Schubert, Debussy, Dohnányi, Ligeti, and Talma, was released in February 2025 and called a “a worthy successor to the distinguished predecessors” (Gramophone). Over recent years, Weiss has also raised his profile through video, assembling a broad and growing YouTube videography.

In the summer of 2011, Weiss made his debut with Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood as a last-minute replacement for Leon Fleisher. He has also performed with San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and in summer concerts with New York Philharmonic at both Lincoln Center and the Bravo! Vail Valley Festival. In 2005, he toured Israel with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Itzhak Perlman.

Weiss’s list of awards includes the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at The Juilliard School, and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. He won the 2005 William Petschek Recital Award at Juilliard and made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall that April. Also in 2005, Weiss made his European debut in a recital at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. From 2002-2004, he was a member of Lincoln Center’s The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). A native of Lyndhurst, Ohio, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artist Program through high school, where he studied with Paul Schenly, Daniel Shapiro, and Sergei Babayan. His other teachers include Joseph Kalichstein, Jerome Lowenthal, Kathryn Brown, and Edith Reed. In February 1999, Weiss made his Cleveland Orchestra debut performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The next month, with less than 24 hours’ notice, Weiss stepped in to replace André Watts for a performance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and was immediately invited to return for a performance that October. In 2004, he graduated from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax. Learn more www.orionweiss.com.

Photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco