James Giles: Biography

James Giles regularly performs to acclaim in important musical centers in America and Europe. He recently completed a tour of China and played at Warsaw’s Chopin Academy of Music. Last season he appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Bangor, Boise, Evanston, and Fresno. He performed Gershwin’s Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue with the Fresno Philharmonic on five days notice, replacing the indisposed soloist. This season, in addition to performances in France, Italy, Bosnia, and China, he collaborates with the Cassatt, Chicago and Pacifica Quartets, with tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, with violinists Gerardo Ribiero and Ilya Kaler, and with the Chicago Chamber Musicians.

In an eclectic repertoire encompassing the solo and chamber music literatures, Giles is equally at home in the standard repertoire as in the music of our time. He has commissioned and premiered works by William Bolcom, C. Curtis-Smith, Stephen Hough, Lowell Liebermann, Ned Rorem, Augusta Read Thomas, Earl Wild, and James Wintle. Most of these new works are featured on Giles’s new Albany Records release entitled “American Virtuoso.”

His Paris recital in 2004 was hailed as “a true revelation, due equally to the pianist’s artistry as to his choice of program.” The critic for Helsinki’s main newspaper wrote that “Giles is a technically polished, elegant pianist.” And a London critic called his recent Wigmore Hall recital “one of the most sheerly inspired piano recitals I can remember hearing for some time” and added that “with a riveting intelligence given to everything he played, it was the kind of recital you never really forget.”

He has performed with New York’s Jupiter Symphony; the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra in Queen Elizabeth Hall; the Kharkiv Philharmonic in Ukraine; and with the Opera Orchestra of New York in Alice Tully Hall. After his Tully Hall solo recital debut, critic Harris Goldsmith wrote: “Giles has a truly distinctive interpretive persona. This was beautiful pianism – direct and unmannered.” Other tours have included concerts in Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess Series, Salt Lake City’s Assembly Hall Concert Series, and in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Musikhalle in Hamburg, and the Purcell Room at London’s South Bank Centre. He has given live recitals over the public radio stations of New York, Boston, Chicago, and Indianapolis. His compact disc of works by Schumann and Prokofiev is available on England’s Master Musicians label and a recording of new American music can be found on the Albany label. As a chamber musician he has collaborated with members of the National and Chicago Symphonies and with members of the Pacifica, Cassatt, Chicago, Ying, Chester, St. Lawrence, Essex, Lincoln, and Miami Quartets, as well as singers Aprile Millo and Anthony Dean Griffey.

A native of North Carolina, Dr. Giles studied with Byron Janis at the Manhattan School of Music, Jerome Lowenthal at the Juilliard School, Nelita True at the Eastman School of Music, and Robert Shannon at Oberlin College.

The pianist received early career assistance from the Clarisse B. Kampel Foundation and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Florence with the legendary pianist Lazar Berman. He was the recipient of a fellowship grant and the Christel Award from the American Pianists Association and now serves on the APA’s National Advisory Board. He won first prizes at the New Orleans International Piano Competition, the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition, and the Music Teachers National Association Competition. As a student he was awarded the prestigious William Petschek Scholarship at the Juilliard School and the Rudolf Serkin Award for outstanding graduate at the Oberlin College Conservatory. He has written for Piano and Keyboard magazine and has presented lecture-recitals at the national conventions of the Music Teachers National Association, the College Music Society, and Pi Kappa Lambda. He has served on the juries of several international piano competitions.

Dr. Giles is on the piano faculty at Northwestern University. He has recently been a guest professor at the Sibelius Academy in Finland and at Indiana University, where he taught the students of Menahem Pressler. He has formerly served on the faculties of the University of North Texas and the Interlochen Arts Academy. He is the founder of the Las Vegas Piano Institute, an educational summer program for young pianists, and is the chair of the piano department at the Eastern Music Festival during the summers.

Warsaw Review

“Ruch Muzyczny” (a Polish music periodical) Year XLIX, no.17, August 21, 2005

During the Festival solo recitals were given by three pianists: James Giles, Julian Jia and Krzysztof Jablonski.

Hailing from Chicago, James Giles (July 20, at the Music Akademy) presented a very challenging program – both for the performer as well as listener.

He played, in order of performance, Nikolai Medtner’s Canzona Serenata and Danza Festiva from Forgotten Melodies, Drei Klavierstucke D. 946 by Schubert, Liszt’s Second Ballade in b minor, and then contemporary American music: Recalling by Ned Rorem (b. 1923), Balletto by James Wintle (b. 1942), Third Sonata Op. 83 by Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961), and Virtuoso Etudes on Gershwin Songs by Earl Wild (b. 1915).

This choice of program was not accidental. Giles turned out to be a pianist with a cerebral approach to music-making and one who uses his outstanding technical equipment with restraint.

In his interpretations there was much focus, meditation, as well as effects more coloristic than virtuosic (even in the Liszt Ballade). Only at the end the artist allowed himself – and the audience – a moment of relaxation, performing, written in Rachmaninoff’s style, although based on the music by Gershwin, etudes by Earl Wild.

He played them excellently, elegantly, and with an authentic sense of swing.

Translation: Adam Wodnicki

Paris Review

Paris. Salle Cortot. 19-V-2004. Nicolai Medtner (1880-1951) From Forgotten Melodies Op.38 (1922) - Canzona Seranata - Danza festiva. Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) Drei Klavierstucke D.946 (1828): Allegro assai - Allegretto - Allegro. Ned Rorem (ne en 1923). Recalling (2003) (Premiere mondiale): Remembering Lake Michigan - The Wind Remains (Remembering Paul Bowles) - Remembering Tomorrow. Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911). Franz Liszt (1811 -1886). Valse de l'opera Faust de Gounod (1861, transcription). James Giles, piano.

This debut recital in France by the American pianist James Giles offered, besides the obvious pleasure of discovering an artist, a program composed of widely varied works from Nicolai Medtner to Ned Rorem, without neglecting the more traditional repertoire with Schubert, Ravel and Liszt.

It must be recognized that in this particular case we are speaking of a true revelation, due equally to the pianist's artistry and to his choice of program. Here was an authentic pianist, in the true sense of the word, a real musician exploiting the full range of his instrument, spanning a vast repertoire, without drawing unnecessary attention to himself. Here is a pianist who seems to blend with his instrument, really "working" it in the most concrete sense, with a measure of humility and great rigor. With James Giles, there are neither showy effects nor pathos, but extreme technique and concentration, virtually palpable, and a great power combined with intense control.

This artist's qualities impose themselves particularly by his interpretation of the superb Forgotten Melodies by Medtner. This Russian composer who, even though he wrote great works, had much trouble differentiating himself from Rachmaninov (who himself admired him), and lived his whole life in his shadow. His musical writing, mostly destined for the piano, was also influenced by Brahms and Schumann. James Giles shows the skills in these pieces which we will find again throughout the concert, in effect a declined art of the elegy (Canzona Serenata) and of brilliance (Danza Festiva), and a very precise play, racy and imprinted with wonderful sensibility.
The three pieces by Schubert that followed, composed a little before his death, were exemplary of James Giles's "trademark." It had been a long time indeed, at least since Schnabel, for example, that we had heard these pieces played in this manner, at the same time with humility and rigor, without romantic rubato, and at the same time a sort of effacement in front of the music, in a simple manner, nuanced, refined but without mannerisms, in one word, just, in a justness that comes from the heart. Heart wrenching.

Rorem is one of the most honored and played American composers. His work, which is beginning to be better known in France, was much influenced by Paul Bowles, one of his teachers, and also, from his time in Paris, by his meeting with Auric, Poulenc and Cocteau. His book, "Parisian Journal" (1951-55) was published in France in 2003 in a translation by Renaud Machard. In fact, the great mezzo-soprano Susan Graham recorded in 2000 for Erato a disc entirely dedicated to his melodies. "Recalling," a commission of the Northwestern University School of Music for James Giles, and finished in December 2003, is here given as a world premiere. This powerful piece, difficult, very much inspired by Paul Bowles (The Wind Remains), puts forth a new facet of the immense talent of the American pianist: his work in contemporary music. A strange mix of exacerbated romanticism and of somewhat decadent modernity, Recalling finds in Giles an almost perfect interpreter.

After this shining first part of the program, the second, slightly more restrained, finds less surprises, and shows even a slight lowering of tension, especially in the Ravel pieces, where the pianist seems relatively less inspired than in the preceding pages. However, the paraphrase of Liszt on the Faust waltz, a showy piece of bravura, put forth the virtuosity and the power of Giles's skill, and in fact, his amazing capacity to adapt to every style.

The subtle "Embraceable you" by Gershwin, given as an encore, magnificently concluded this very beautiful recital. A pianist to follow, definitely, and whom we can only wish to see again soon in Paris.

NB : James Giles a enregistre Humoreske op. 20 de Schumann et la Sonate n°8 op.84 de Prokofiev pour le label " England's Master Musicians ".

Credit photographique : (c) DR
Redacteur : Juliette Buch

Seen & Heard Recital Review

Lowell Liebermann Première (+ Liszt, Schubert, Read Thomas, Hough, Wild),
James Giles (piano), Wigmore Hall, 16th April 2003

The young American pianist James Giles, a professor at Northwestern
University, gave one of the most sheerly inspired piano recitals I can
remember hearing for sometime. Inspired partly for the programming, which
placed the familiar with the unfamiliar, and inspired partly by self-evident
artistry, it was the kind of recital which put the music at the service of
the composer and not the performer.

For some, Mr. Giles's performance of Schubert's great D. 960 sonata might have compared less favorably with a recent one given at the Festival Hall by Evgeny Kissin. Yet Kissin's egomaniac, somnambulant performance, taken at a dangerously slow tempo, was a world away from the tempestuous, almost fiery approach which Mr. Giles took. Where Mr. Kissin had been obtrusive in his use of rubato, Mr. Giles used it to the minimum and the effect was to distil a parenthesis of death-hued ambivalence to the noble opening movement. Subtle shadings of pp and ppp playing, so poorly differentiated in Mr. Kissin's performance, were here radically drawn so when the appearance of the G-flat trill in the bass part of the piano awoke, like a slumbering giant, it did so with thunderous, almost calamitous, force.

What Mr. Kissin mistook for languor in the second movement, Mr. Giles took for poetry and how beautifully he controlled the sound, sometimes
over-projected by pianists, of Schubert's col pedale marking. If time
literally did appear to stand still in Mr. Kissin's traversal of this
movement, Mr. Giles evoked stillness in so far as a shadow creeps forward
beneath failing sunlight. He brought a mercurial lightness of touch to the
Scherzo, and the Allegro had requisite high-spiritedness. Perhaps sometimes Mr. Giles's keyboard coloring could be a little more ravishing than it was but this was a performance of the D960 which stands comparison with that of one of the finest of today's young Schubertians, Paul Lewis.

As Liszt had closed Evgeny Kissin's recital, so it opened James Giles's. On
the Death of Laszlo Telecky proved to be the darkest of openings, its
implacable four-note ground bass resonating with almost ground-shaking
force. The Hungarian Rhapsody No.17 was delivered with fearless panache amid coruscating blackness of tone. It is not difficult to see that two of his
teachers were Byron Janis and Lazar Berman, two exceptionally fine Liszt
players.

The second half of James Giles's programme constituted a series of world
premières, although they were really European premières since most had
already been performed in the United States in February. Augusta Read
Thomas's Two New Etudes pay homage to Messiaen and Boulez, although in reality they resemble neither composer. "Cathedral Waterfall" lacks the
colour that Messiaen's music drips with and "On Twilight" doesn't have that
Boulezian splinter of sound that resembles the feeling of walking over
shards of broken glass. Intermittently they offer glimpses of a composer on
the brink of finding her voice, but ultimately they fall short of
inventiveness.

Stephen Hough, better known as a pianist, composed his Suite R-B for Richard Goula (the Ritchie-Bitchie of the title) and these expressive, but overtly tonal vignettes, offer a transparency of diction largely missing from Read Thomas's Etudes. Mr. Giles played them with delicacy, especially "The Iris Garden" (dedicated to him), but could never quite save these pieces from being unmemorable. In a somewhat different league is Earl Wild's arrangement of Jarabe Tapatio "Mexican Hat Dance," in part an outrageous spoof, in part a throwback to the grand manner of Nineteenth Century transcriptions for the piano. Mr. Giles played it effortlessly, spinning an exhilarating stream of invective and virtuosity, much in the same way as the great pianist himself might have done.

There is no question, however, that Lowell Liebermann's Sonata No.3 op.82 is of a very different magnitude to the other new works played in this recital. Its scale is breathtaking, its drama evocative and its lasting place in the repertoire imperishable. Liebermann's largest solo piano work to date, and his first piano sonata for 20 years, it has all the typical elements of
lyrical brilliance and formidable virtuosity which were hallmarks of his
two, incandescent piano concertos (recorded by Stephen Hough for Hyperion).

Although written in a single movement it is clearly, in form, a sonata with
its fast-slow-fast contours immediately evident. The first part of the
Sonata has a Stygian darkness which recalls Prokofiev and Bartok, not least in the velocity of octaves the pianist is forced to negotiate, but it is
much more than being merely derivative. Fundamental to the work is an
ambiguity of texture and a cerebral pointedness which is uniquely
Liebermann's.

Most striking is the sublime middle section, more improvisatory than the
fiery outer sections, with music that is alternately lyrical and barbarous.
The Jacobean blackness of some of the phrasing, so meticulously uncovered in this wonderful performance of it, is reminiscent of some of Shostakovich's most desolate writing, but so too is the sparse, spatial writing (recalling that composer's late string quartets). At times, Liebermann abruptly truncates the lyricism and instead we get malevolent atonal passages of almost unbearable tension. This is no better illustrated than in the middle part of this section with its low bass chords and high ringing, right-hand notes hit with penetrating (and piercing) force. It reminded me in no small way of twin towers rising inexorably only for them to collapse under the weight of the victorious bass line chords. The third section returns us to the Bartokian drama and to the work's incendiary conclusion.

It is a magnificent work, and it would be difficult to imagine a more
dedicated and barnstorming performance than the one James Giles gave us. It easily rates as the most formidable achievement by a pianist I have heard for some time.

I ended my review of Evgeny Kissin's March recital by writing, "much of this
programme was conceived on high intellectual values but it was the intellect behind it that was largely missing." James Giles's programme proved to be anything but that with a riveting intelligence given to everything he played. It was the kind of recital you never really forget.

Marc Bridle

Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki, Finland

Wednesday, 23 April 2003
Interesting Guest Pianist from the US

James Giles knows how to produce a natural, beautiful piano sound.

IN RECITAL
Piano Recital by James Giles in the Concert Hall of the Sibelius Academy.
Liszt, Schubert, Thomas, Hough, L.Liebermann, Wild.

Because of the time, Easter Saturday, there was no reason to expect that the American pianist James Giles, not well known here, would draw very many listeners to his solo recital. But those that did attend were rewarded with high-quality piano playing.

Giles is a technically polished, elegant pianist, who is capable of drawing a natural, beautiful sound from the piano and of an economical handling of the instrument. The enticing program started off with some of the experimental late works of Liszt: the movement Ladislaus Teleki from the Historic Hungarian Portraits and the Hungarian Rhapsody no.17. Giles brought depth and a sense of fate to these enigmatic tone pictures.

Many a pianist in our time has tried to "seek atonement" from their preference to virtuoso repertory by taking to Schubert's last Piano Sonata in B flat major. Marc-André Hamelin, Arcadi Volodos, Cyprien Katsaris and now James Giles have recorded and/or performed this Schubert work. Giles' version spoke. He did the opening movements with classic restraint and concentration, giving the music the time it required. The frolicking of the scherzo did not disturb the singing severity of the finale and the entire sonata. A fine interpretation!

In the second half Giles offered four Finnish premieres of American novelties. The weightiest work was Lowell Liebermann's (b.1961) Third Piano Sonata, based on alteration of meditative melodic moments and fast, slightly jazzy eruptions. A solid work. Two etudes by Augusta Read Thomas, Cathedral Waterfall and On Twilight, presented a synthesis between American modernism and European imagery. Good-sounding pieces.

The Suite R-B by British pianist Stephen Hough (b.1961) was, with its dance-, lullaby- and toccatina-movements, pleasant post-Rachmaninovian music that one could recommend as a snack in-between some serious studying. The Mexican Hat Dance Jarabe Tapatio in the transcription of the legendary pianist Earl Wild was a nice, Coplandesque entertainment whammy, although he [Mr.Wild] does have to his credit some even more remarkable things than this one.

James Giles' effortless and direct relationship to the piano, his program and his audience made one hope that this was not his last visit to Finland.

Veijo Murtomäki

Back to top