Ned Kirk, pianist, is a native of Redding, California, where he received his early musical training. For the past 25 years, Kirk has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician, and the 2009-2010 concert season includes over 20 performances on four continents. In the United States he is appearing on concert series from coast to coast, with recital performances in California, Nevada, Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, North Carolina and Florida as well as a concerto performance with the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra in Wisconsin. Overseas performances include recitals in Denmark, France, Hong Kong, and China as well as a series of five recitals, three masterclasses and two radio interviews on a United States Embassy-sponsored tour of Kenya.
For the 2010-2011 season, Kirk will be performing in Germany, France, Kenya and Singapore, as well as the United States. Performances will include concerto engagements with the Minnesota Orchestra and music director Osmo Vänskä at both Sommerfest and the Minnesota Beethoven Festival.
Kirk has collaborated with numerous outstanding musicians, many of whom serve as conductors and principles in major orchestras around the world - Michael Christie, Kevin Kenner, Charles Kavalowski, Glenn Einschlag, Olav Van Hezewijk, Ron Ephrat, Jeffrey Work, David Jones, Lisa-Maree Amos, Daniel Rothmuller and Donald McInnes.
Since 2007, Kirk has served as artistic and managing director of the Minnesota Beethoven Festival. Now in its fourth season, the festival is dedicated to showcasing the tremendous talent found in the region as well as featuring some of the most important international concert artists of our time including Joshua Bell, Marc-André Hamelin, Branford Marsalis, Thomas Hampson and many others. The festival is also proud to feature the Minnesota Orchestra in two performances each summer.
From 2002-2004, Kirk served as orchestral pianist for the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, Colorado. Over the course of three summers, he performed 25 concerts on piano, harpsichord and celesta including Stravinsky's Petrouchka, Piazzolla's Three Chamber Pieces for piano and string orchestra, a baroque program with Michala Petri (recorder), various chamber music concerts, and Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals for two pianos, with his wife, Caroline.
Kirk studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, the University of Massachusetts - Amhearst, and the University of Washington. His piano and chamber music coaches have included Craig Sheppard, Walter Hautzig, Nigel Coxe, Earl Carlyss, Tinka Knopp, Lillian Freundlich, Estela Olevsky, Charles Treger and Yefim Bronfman.
Kirk has been a faculty member at the Marrowstone Music Festival and spent four summers teaching piano masterclasses to students from rural Alaska at the Sitka Fine Arts Institute in Sitka, Alaska. Before moving to Minnesota in 1999, he served for seven years on the piano faculty at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. In addition to his work with the Minnesota Beethoven Festival, Kirk is also an associate professor of piano and chair of the music department at Saint Mary's University in Winona, Minnesota.
