Ran Jia, Piano

Biography

Chinese pianist Ran Jia is already regarded as a striking musician with unusual natural abilities. Composer Tan Dun hailed her as a “piano poet with dramatic skills in music making.”

Born in China, Ms. Jia began studying piano at the age of three and made her solo debut in 1995.  In May 2004, Ms. Jia played a recital at the Heluting Concert Hall at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, a performance received with great enthusiasm by the audience and the media. Oriental TV broadcast two documentaries featuring Ms. Jia’s life as a young artist including her live performance at the Conservatory. In November 2005, she made her debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall with her teacher, Gary Graffman, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 under Maestro Li Jian.

Ms. Jia made an acclaimed European recital debut at the Klavierfestival Ruhr in the summer of 2008 playing two Schubert sonatas. The press commented “She refines each moment, each development, each transition of a melody to the next…With marvelous impressive elegance in touch she feels her way into Schubert’s language – sometimes with dolorous sweetness, sometimes with thunderous rage, then again with a sparkling style, to then go back to a Beethovian energy. There are no fractures, no stutters, no technical hurdles – with this pianist the structures and sounds flow naturally on their own…Tremendous.”

In 2009 Ms. Jia made her Vancouver Symphony Orchestra subscription debut under Maestro Bramwell Tovey, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.12 in A major, K. 414.   In the summer of 2010, Ms. Jia toured the southern cities of China, performing Saint Saens Concerto No. 2 with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra under Guoyong Zhang.  She made her debut at the Miami International Piano Festival in May 2010, a recital which was recorded and recently released on VAI International as a DVD.  Other recent engagements include performances at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, and with the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

In the 2011-12 seasons, Ms. Jia appeared at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival and in recital in Dusseldorf, Munich, and Ludwigshafen.

Ran Jia studied with Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her father, Professor Daqun Jia, is one of the leading composers in China and Dean of the Graduate Study Programs at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Ms. Jia is currently enrolled at the Music Academy in Cologne, studying under Prof. Nina Tichman.  Ran Jia is managed worldwide by Tanja Dorn at IMG Artists.