Brian Ganz

Brian Ganz is widely regarded as one of the leading pianists of his generation.  

Mr. Ganz shared first prize in the 1989 Marguerite Long Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition and was third prize-winner of the 1991 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Piano Competition. He has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, the National Symphony (USA), the National Philharmonic, the City of London Sinfonia, and the Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra. Among the conductors he has performed with are Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Mstislav Rostropovich, Jerzy Semkow and Yoel Levi. 

The Washington Post has written: “One comes away from a recital by pianist Brian Ganz not only exhilarated by the power of the performance but also moved by his search for artistic truth.” For many years, Mr. Ganz has made it his mission to join vivid music making with warmth and intimacy onstage to produce a new kind of listening experience, in which great works come to life with authentic emotional power. As one of Belgium's leading newspapers, La Libre Belgique, put it, "We don't have the words to speak of this fabulous musician who lives music with a generous urgency and brings his public into a state of intense joy."

In January of 2011 Mr. Ganz began a multi-year project in partnership with the National Philharmonic in which he performed the complete works of Fryderyk Chopin at the Music Center at Strathmore. After the inaugural recital, The Washington Post wrote: "Brian Ganz was masterly in his first installment of the complete works [of Chopin]." The final concert took place on April 11, 2026. At this finale Mr. Ganz was honored to  receive from a representative of the Polish government one of Poland’s highest cultural honors, the Medal for Merit to Culture-Gloria Artis.

Mr. Ganz is on the piano faculty of St. Mary's College of Maryland, where he is artist-in-residence—and recently retired after 21 years—from the piano faculty of the Peabody Conservatory. He is the artist-editor of the Schirmer Performance Edition of Chopin’s Preludes (2005). In September 2019, he made his debut as an actor and playwright at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, Freer and Sackler Galleries. The play imagined a dialogue between American artist James Whistler and a musician who explores the connections between Debussy’s music and the artist’s “10 O’Clock Lecture.” Included in the play are portions of the lecture itself, along with performances of the music of Debussy and composers under his influence.

Ganz’s recent highlights include a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Virginia Chamber Orchestra at Capital One Hall in Northern Virginia, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488 with the Annapolis Symphony in Annapolis and at the Music Center at Strathmore. In June 2026, Gramophone Magazine featured Mr. Ganz’s performance of two Chopin Etudes from Op. 25 as its “Video of the Day,” along with a short article about his journey through the complete works of Chopin.