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About Jon Kimura Parker
Hometown
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Born
December 25, 1959
Genre
Classical
Jon Kimura Parker, known as "Jackie" to his friends, is a pianist who is not only interested in a wide range of music but also truly enjoys making music. It could even be said that he really knows how to play: he has performed wearing a Star Trek: The Next Generation costume, and he has slipped the theme to The Simpsons into a cadenza.
Parker was born on December 25, 1959, and was raised in Vancouver, where he and his brother, pianist Jamie Parker, studied with their uncle Edward J. Parker. Jon also studied at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Vancouver Academy of Music, and the University of British Columbia. He then went on to work with Adele Marcus at Juilliard. Even as a young pianist, Parker admits admiring a diversity of music and pianists, such as Arthur Rubinstein, Elton John, and his idol, Oscar Peterson, sometimes using Peterson's music for encores at recitals. In 1984, Parker won the Leeds International Piano Competition, effectively launching a career as a soloist that has taken him around the world, performing repertoire ranging from Mozart to Bartók to that of contemporary composers. He accompanied an AmeriCares humanitarian relief mission to Bosnia in 1995, where he and the Sarajevo Philharmonic performed a New Year's Eve concert in a hall with no heat. His performances are as frequently noted for their energy and enthusiasm as they are for his colorful tone and technical skills. Besides his solo work, Parker just as often performs chamber music and music for multiple pianos. He is a member of "Piano Six," a group of Canadian pianists (the others are Janina Fialkowska, Angela Hewitt, Angela Cheng, Marc-André Hamelin, and André Laplante) who take music to the remotest areas of the country, performing and teaching together and separately for people who don't get to hear live music as frequently as those living in urban areas. Parker also makes several festival appearances every year, including the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, off the Pacific coast, where his wife -- violinist Aloysia Friedmann -- is artistic director.
Parker teaches at Rice University in Houston, Texas, when he isn't traveling around, sharing a Beethoven concerto, a song by Alanis Morissette, or the X-Files theme with an unsuspecting audience. He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1999 and, in 2015, joined the chamber ensemble Off the Shore, with Stewart Copeland (drums), Yoon Kwon (violin), Marlon Martinez (bass), and Judd Miller (electronic valve instrument). Parker has recorded for the CBC Records, Telarc, and Naxos labels. He teamed up with his brother Jamie and cousin Ian Parker for a 2006 CBC Records release of Mozart's concertos for one, two, or three pianos. In 2020, Jon accompanied Cho-Liang Lin on the Naxos album Three American Violin Sonatas. ~ Patsy Morita
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