Joel Krosnick
For more than 35 years, cellist Joel Krosnick has performed as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician all over the world. As a member of the Juilliard String Quartet since 1974, he has performed the great quartet literature throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He has recorded the complete quartets of Beethoven, Bartók, Schoenberg, Janacek, Hindemith, and Brahms, as well as the last 10 quartets of Mozart, four quartets of Elliott Carter, and works of Haydn, Debussy, Ravel, Dutilleux, Berg, Smetana, Franck, Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Verdi, Sibelius, Bach, Roger Sessions, Donald Martino, and Stefan Wolpe. In 2008, also as a member of the Juilliard String Quartet, Mr. Krosnick was awarded the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award by Chamber Music America.
With his sonata partner of over 30 years, pianist Gilbert Kalish, Mr. Krosnick has performed recitals throughout the United States and Europe. Since 1976, they have given annual series of recitals in New York City at such venues as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, and the Juilliard School’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater and Paul Recital Hall. In 1987, the Krosnick/Kalish Duo presented a six-concert retrospective of 20th century music for cello and piano at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater and at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In the 2005-06 concert season the duo performed the complete sonatas and variations for cello and piano by Beethoven; and in 2007-08, Mr. Krosnick and Mr. Kalish presented American Milestones of the last 100 Years, including works of Ernst Bacon, Henry Cowell, Elliott Carter, Ralph Shapey, Richard Wernick, Donald Martino, and Robert Stern. Both presentations were in pairs of recitals at the Juilliard School’s Paul Recital Hall.
Mr. Krosnick has recorded with Mr. Kalish the complete sonatas and variations of Beethoven and the sonatas of Brahms, as well as works of Poulenc, Prokofiev, Carter, Hindemith, Debussy, Janacek, and Cowell for the Arabesque label. Especially noteworthy is their collaboration on a disc devoted to the cello and piano music of Ralph Shapey. Yet to be released is a CD of Forgotten Americans, featuring music of Ernst Bacon, Hall Overton, Ben Weber, and Otto Luening.
Joel Krosnick was born in Connecticut to a family of enthusiastic amateur musicians; his mother was a pianist and his father was a violinist/doctor. His brother, Aaron Krosnick, is a professional violinist — a long time faculty member at Jacksonville University in Florida. Joel Krosnick’s principal teachers were William D’Amato, Luigi Silva, Jens Nygaard, and Claus Adam, whom he succeeded in the Juilliard String Quartet. Mr. Krosnick completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia College, where he began his lifelong commitment to contemporary music. While studying at the College, he became involved with living composers and new music, and eventually became a founding member of the Group for Contemporary Music.
He has performed and premiered a large number of new works including Donald Martino’s Cello Concerto in Cincinnati and in New York (with the Juilliard Orchestra); Ralph Shapey’s Double Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra (with violinist Robert Mann and the composer conducting the Juilliard Orchestra); and Shapey’s Concerto for Cello, Piano, and Double String Orchestra (with pianist Gilbert Kalish, and with the composer conducting the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra). In October 1999, Mr. Krosnick premiered Richard Wernick’s Cello Concerto No. 2, with Robert Mann conducting the Juilliard Orchestra. In January 2001, he played the Concerto by Sir Donald Francis Tovey in three New York performances with the Jupiter Symphony under the baton of Jens Nygaard. Joel Krosnick’s recording of the Sonata for Solo Cello by Artur Schnabel appears on the CP2 label; and his CD of Roger Sessions’s Six Pieces for Solo Cello is presented by Koch Classics.
Mr. Krosnick has taught the cello and chamber music since his earliest professional life. He has held professorships at the Universities of Iowa and Massachusetts, and was artist-in-residence at the California Institute of the Arts. Since 1974, he has been on the faculty of the Juilliard School, where, since 1994, he has served as chairman of the cello department. Mr. Krosnick has been associated with the Aspen, Marlboro, Tanglewood, and Yellow Barn Festivals; and he is currently on the faculty of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School and Festival. In 2005 he appeared for the third time as a member of the artist faculty of the Piatigorsky Seminar at the University of Southern California.
Mr. Krosnick is a recipient of the Chevalier du Violoncelle Award from the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center at the Indiana University School of Music. He holds honorary doctoral degrees from Michigan State University, Jacksonville University, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As a member of the Juilliard String Quartet, he has received numerous Grammy nominations, twice winning the Grammy Award (for the complete Schoenberg quartets and the late quartets of Beethoven). His discs, In the Shadow of World War I and In the Shadow of World War II , with his sonata partner Gilbert Kalish, won Indie Awards. The duo’s recording of the Brahms sonatas won the Classical Recording Foundation Award. Joel Krosnick has recorded for the Sony Classical, Nonesuch, Orion, CRI, New World, Koch International, CP2, and Arabesque Labels.
