Pianist Soheil Nasseri has been acclaimed by The New York Times as “consistently interesting... consistently thoughtful... an inventive interpretive spirit... a magnificent technique,” and by the Berliner Zeitung as “Fantastic! Exquisite! Hats off to him! A real talent. One was able to enjoy themselves on the highest level.”

In addition to such enthusiastic international praise, The New Yorker has noted that Mr. Nasseri is “one of New York’s most prolific recitalists.” Since the fall of 2001, the 29-year-old has performed eighteen completely different solo recital programs in New York, all without repeating a single piece: thirteen at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and five at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. These concerts included 21 premières of contemporary works in addition to 28 of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, a part of Mr. Nasseri’s pledge to perform all of Beethoven’s works involving piano—including the chamber music and lieder—by the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020.

Mr. Nasseri made his European recital debut in May 2004 at Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Sicily. In addition to other concerts in Italy, he has also performed in England, France, Germany and in nearly a dozen states in the U.S.A. Mr. Nasseri recently gave solo recitals at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and in the Kammermusiksaal of the Philharmonie in Berlin and in March he gave his London debut with a solo recital in the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall.

One of Soheil Nasseri’s foremost interests has been his inner-city public school music education program.  Often credited for drawing New York’s most diverse and youthful audience to any classical concert series, Mr. Nasseri has given concerts at more than 60 public schools in the U.S. since 2003, with a combined audience of about 25,000 wildly responsive students.

Mr. Nasseri is also passionately committed to promoting new music of young classical composers and indeed many composers have written pieces specifically for him, including Richard Danielpour, Avner Dorman, Martin Kennedy, Haskell Small, Ronn Yedidia, Lev 'Ljova' Zhurbin, and Samuel Zyman. In 2002, Mr. Nasseri recorded a CD ‘single’ featuring three of these new works. In 2002 at Weill Recital Hall, Mr. Nasseri gave the world première of the first major piano work by English composer Kaikhosru Sorabji, the “Sonata No. 0” (1917), which Mr. Nasseri recently recorded for Centaur Records, in addition to sonatas by Beethoven and Rachmaninoff.

Born to Persian parents in Santa Monica, California, Soheil Nasseri began studying the piano at the age of five and at the age of twenty moved to New York to study intensively with the late Karl Ulrich Schnabel (1909–2001).  Following the death of Mr. Schnabel, Mr. Nasseri became a protégé of Jerome Lowenthal who remains Mr. Nasseri’s mentor today.  Other significant teachers include Irina Edelman, Anna Balakerskaia, Clinton Adams, Eva Pierrou, and Ann Schein.

Soheil Nasseri divides his time between residences in New York and Berlin.