Naomi Niskala
Pianist

Pianist Naomi Niskala has appeared as soloist and chamber musician in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Japan, and her performances have been broadcast on BBC Radio and NPR's Performance Today. Her competition awards have included first prize at the 1996 Kingsville International Isabel Scionti Solo Piano Competition, and a top prize at the International Stravinsky Awards Competition in Illinois. Attending two summers each at Tanglewood's Music Center and Ravinia Festival's Steans Institute, Niskala also toured on the first “Musicians from Ravinia's Steans Institute” tour with violinist Miriam Fried. She was later invited by Zarin Mehta to Israel, Turkey, and Greece to perform chamber music for a Ravinia Festival benefit. Niskala is a founding member of the Kuamni Trio for flute, cello, and piano, and is a member of the America 's Dream Chamber Artists (ADCA) based in New York City. Niskala is known for her research and performance of the solo piano works of American composer Robert Helps (1928-2001), and has been invited to perform and lecture on these works at universities and halls in the United States, Canada, Japan and Germany. Her release of the first complete recordings of Helps' solo piano works on two discs with Albany Records in 2007 was met with high acclaim, and the first volume was chosen by ClassicsTodays as one of its "2007 Best of the Year" discs. Performances for the 2007-2008 season include a return to the Icicle Creek Music Center in Washington, the San Francisco Symphony Chamber Series at Davies Symphony Hall, and Spectrum Concerts Berlin at Philharmonie Hall.

Born to Japanese/Finnish-American parents, Niskala began studying piano at the age of three. She grew up in Rochester, New York and later in Tokyo, Japan. Niskala holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the New England Conservatory of Music, and also attended Tufts University. She received her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Piano Performance with Gilbert Kalish at Stony Brook, and an Artist Diploma with Claude Frank at Yale. Other teachers include Patricia Zander and Maria Luisa Faini. Niskala also studied chamber music with pianists Leon Fleisher and Peter Serkin, violinists Louis Krasner and Eugene Lehner, and bassist Julius Levine. Niskala taught on the faculties at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, Connecticut and Wesleyan University (Connecticut), and was Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of South Florida's School of Music. During the summer Niskala teaches at the Lutheran Summer Music Academy and Festival, and she is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of North Dakota.

Reviews

"Naomi Niskala is a bold, rigorous, poetic champion of this tough-minded but eclectic composer. (Robert) Helps's legacy is in good hands."
- Jack Sullivan, American Record Guide

"Niskala nurtures a soft silky tone but produces a wide palate of sounds...(Frank Dodge, cello, and Niskala) do what they do extremely well because they do it without pretentiousness...both of them so truthfully and lovingly do their own thing."
- Christiane Tewinkel, Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin) March 30, 2008

"Pianists Naomi Niskala and Oksana Ezhokina with percussionists David Herbert and James Lee Wyatt III played (the Bartok Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion) superbly throughout. I've never before heard it done as well. And this they accomplished without a conductor to help hold things together. The unity of attacks on even syncopated notes was picture-perfect, and that with little eye contact amid the musicians. It was uncanny, like some kind of telepathy at work..."
- Heuwell Tircuit, San Francisco Classical Voice

"...What most impresses me most about Naomi Niskala's solid, intelligent, and caring virtuosity is that she is fully attuned to the substance and spirit of these works..." (Robert Helps Complete Works for Piano, volume I)
- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

"you'll find my ...enthusiastic endorsement of Naomi Niskala's scrupulously prepared, intelligent, loving interpretations...The warmth and presence of the sonics do full justice to Niskala's colorful sonirity. In short, this release and its predecessor address a major catalog gap with the utmost distinction." (Robert Helps Complete Works for Piano, volume 2)
- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com