Joel Fan Biography | Johns Hopkins Alumni

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Joel Fan, Piano

An artist with a “probing intellect and a vivid imagination” (New York Times), Joel Fan is a uniquely brilliant pianist conjoining great works of the past and newly discovered music of cultures from around the world. As the Boston Globe commented, Joel is a “Champion of new music, explorer of world music.” Consistently acclaimed for his recitals and appearances with orchestras, Mr. Fan scored two consecutive Billboard Top 10 Debuts with his solo CDs World Keys and West of the Sun. In collaboration with the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma as a member of the Silk Road Ensemble, Joel Fan has appeared in numerous venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and on the popular nationally-televised programs Good Morning America and Late Night with David Letterman. He also shared the stage with Mr. Ma for performances of the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of David Zinman. Mr. Fan has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Singapore Symphony, New Symphony Orchestra of Bulgaria, and Odessa Philharmonic, among others. In addition to Maestro Zinman, his performances with conductors include Alan Gilbert, Zubin Mehta, David Alan Miller, Gustav Meier, and David Robertson. A native New Yorker, Mr. Fan studied at the Juilliard Pre-College Division as a student of Katherine Parker and Martin Canin. He received his Bachelor degree from Harvard University, where his teachers included the composer Leon Kirchner. He holds a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Leon Fleisher. He is also a prize winner of several international competitions, including the Busoni International Piano Competition in Italy. He was also the winner of the Kosciuzko Foundation’s Chopin Prize and named a Presidential Scholar by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Joel Fan is a Steinway Artist.