Pianist Jason Hardink is the Artistic Director of the NOVA Chamber Music Series and Principal Symphony Keyboard of the Utah Symphony. His performances include a wide-ranging repertoire of music by living composers and works of the historical canon. Recent performances include the U.S. premiere of the complete numbered Klavierstücke of Wolfgang Rihm at Spectrum, as well as concerti with the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, and the Utah Symphony. Over the last few seasons, he has given a series of lecture recitals on Beethoven’s piano sonatas, performed a cycle of recitals situating the late piano music of Franz Schubert in dialogue with works by Second Viennese School composers, and toured with Olivier Messiaen’s monumental Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus.

Much sought after as a chamber musician, Mr. Hardink has recently collaborated with violinist Phillip Setzer of the Emerson String Quartet and world-renowned soprano Celena Shafer. He has appeared on chamber music series all over the U.S., including Music in Context, fEARnoMUSIC, Music on the Hill, Aperio Music of the Americas, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. Hardink has performed solo works of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms on period instruments, and he has toured Norway with violinist Tor Johan Bøen performing the Grieg Sonatas for Violin and Piano on an 1853 Blüthner. In Salt Lake City he has worked with noted guest composers such as Tristan Murail and Frederic Rzewski as a member of the Canyonlands New Music Ensemble, and he has premiered works by Utah composers Morris Rosenzweig, Steve Ricks, Miguel Chuaqui, and Steve Roens.

Mr. Hardink’s leadership of the NOVA Chamber Music Series has created a dynamic environment through which audience and performers experience music both new and old; the 2015/16 season of NOVA includes important Utah and world premieres of works by Andrew Norman, Michael Hicks, Pierre Boulez, Matthias Pintscher, and William Bolcom alongside works by Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. He recently performed a cycle of Beethoven Sonatas for Violin and Piano with Utah Symphony Associate Concertmaster Kathryn Eberle on the series.

Mr. Hardink has appeared as guest recitalist and adjudicator for both the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition and the Oberlin International Piano Competition. He has recently served as guest artist for the University of Utah Summer Chamber Music Workshop and the Idaho State University Summer Piano Institute. Hardink holds a DMA from Rice University, where he studied with Brian Connelly; his Doctoral thesis “Messiaen and Plainchant” explores the varying levels of influence that Gregorian chant exerted on the music of Olivier Messiaen. He is married to pianist Kimi Kawashima, and they are parents of twin boys, Luc and Derek.