Pianist Pedja Muzijevic has defined his career with creative programming, unusual combinations of new and old music, and lasting collaborations with artists and ensembles. Pedja’s symphonic engagements include performances with the Atlanta Symphony, Dresden Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica in Montevideo, Residentie Orkest in The Hague, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Shinsei Nihon Orchestra in Tokyo, and Zagreb Philharmonic. He has played solo recitals at Alice Tully Hall in New York, Mostly Mozart Festival Little Night Music series, 92Y and The Frick Collection in New York, Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, MI, Terrace Theater at Kennedy Center, Dumbarton Oaks and National Gallery in Washington, DC, Casals Hall and Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, Teatro Municipal in Santiago de Chile, Da Camera of Houston, for Arizona Friends of Chamber Music in Tucson, Lane Series at University of Vermont, Spoleto USA, Verbier, Bay Chamber Concerts, Aldeburgh Festival in Great Britain, and many others. His Carnegie Hall concerto debut playing Mozart Concerto K. 503 with Oberlin Symphony and Robert Spano was recorded live and has been released on the Oberlin Music label.
Highlights of 2018/19 season include solo recitals in Montreal, Vancouver, Washington, DC and for Orchestra of St. Luke’s Bach Festival in New York; world premiere of Framing Time – collaboration with dancer/choreographer Cesc Gelabert and lighting designer Burke Brown on music of Morton Feldman for Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival in New York, its European premiere in Leverkusen, Germany, curating and performing a concert with UNC Chamber Singers at CURRENT Art Space at UNC, Chapel Hill, as well as the world premiere of Jonathan Berger’s chamber opera Leonardo with Tyler Duncan, Tara Helen O’Connor, James Austin Smith, Todd Palmer and the St. Lawrence String Quartet at New York’s 92Y.
Pedja’s 2018 festival season included his return to the Spoleto Festival USA both for chamber music and a solo appearance with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra and maestro Steven Sloane, Toronto Summer Music, Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, Bay Chamber Concerts in Maine, Tippet Rise in Montana and the Verbier Festival Academy.
Highlights on 2017/18 season include solo recitals at 92Y in New York, for Carolina Performing Arts in Chapel Hill, Mainly Mozart in San Diego, as well as return engagement with Zagreb Philharmonic. Combining his two passions, music and food, Pedja performed works by Ravel and Mussorgsky followed by a multi-course dinner prepared by chef David Bouley in his Test Kitchen in New York.
Pedja has toured with Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project throughout the United States, South America, Europe and Asia and with Simon Keenlyside in Trisha Brown’s staged version of Schubert’s Winterreise at Lincoln Center in New York, Barbican in London, La Monnaie in Brussels, Opera National de Paris, as well as in Amsterdam, Lucerne and Melbourne.
Pedja’s solo recordings include Haydn Dialogues(live recording of a recital program of four Haydn sonatas interspersed with works by Jonathan Berger, John Cage and Morton Feldman) and Sonatas and Other Interludes(juxtaposing Sonatas and Interludes by John Cage with composers ranging from W. F. Bach and D. Scarlatti to F. Liszt and R. Schumann). His discography also include aforementioned Mozart Piano Concerto K. 503 with Oberlin Symphony and Robert Spano, recorded in concert at Carnegie Hall and two CDs on 18th and 19thfortepianos – a Schumann Salon and Mozart and Beethoven Quintets for piano and woodwinds.
Pedja Muzijevic was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and studied piano with Vladimir Krpan at the Academy of Music in Zagreb. He came to the United States in 1984 to continue his education at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and Juilliard School in New York. His mentors included pianists Joseph Kalichstein and Jerome Lowenthal, harpsichordist Albert Fuller and violinists Robert Mann and Joel Smirnoff.
Pedja is the artistic administrator at Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, artistic advisor to Tippet Rise Arts Center in Montana and he also directs a residency at the Banff Centre in Canada called Concert in 21stCentury. In all these roles he looks at the concert experience, both in programming and presentation and questions what can we do to make it more relevant today. He lives in New York City and, in his free time, he enjoys cooking for friends and seeing performances in all disciplines.
