Solon Pierce

A native of Wisconsin, pianist Solon Pierce has entertained audiences throughout the United States and abroad since embarking on a career as a collaborative and solo musician. Pierce has performed at universities and colleges in many cities and towns in the US including San Diego, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, Tampa, and Los Angeles. He has also appeared at venues such as the Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall in New York City and the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee. Internationally, he has given performances at the Maison Française and Magdalen College of the University of Oxford, the British Music Information Centre in London, the Fondation Danoise in Paris, Sofia Kyrka in Stockholm, and at the Vendsyssel Festival and Skagens Museum in Jutland, Denmark.

To prepare for his career as a musician, Solon Pierce completed an extensive amount of formal training. He began his postsecondary work at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he obtained his Bachelor of Music in piano performance. While working toward his undergraduate degree, he studied under Robert McDonald. After finishing at Oberlin, he enrolled at The Juilliard School, in New York City, for his Master of Music in piano performance. His teachers at Juilliard included Abbey Simon and Jerome Lowenthal. Solon Pierce received his Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Thanks in part to an alumni grant awarded by Oberlin College, Pierce spent 3 months abroad in 1999-2000 and recorded "Sonata No. 23" by Gunnar Johansen for Radio Denmark in Copenhagen. In addition, he was one of the delegate presenters at the 1999 Glenn Gould Gathering in Toronto, delivering a presentation entitled "Glenn Gould and Gunnar Johansen: A Tale of Two Magi."