KENNETH OSOWSKI

Pianist KENNETH OSOWSKI maintains an active career as both performer and educator. In the summer of 2024, he was appointed to the piano faculty of Northern Arizona University’s Kitt School of Music. Osowski previously served as Associate Professor of Music and Director of Piano and Music Theory Studies at York College of Pennsylvania, where he also taught courses in Jazz History, History of Rock & Roll, and Innovations in Music & Culture since 1900. He has also served on the faculty of the YCPrep Community Music School and as Artistic Co-Director of the York Summer Music Academy. Prior to his appointment at York College, Osowski served on the music theory faculties of the Peabody Conservatory and Johns Hopkins University. He earned a doctoral degree from the Peabody Conservatory, a master’s degree from the University of Nevada, Reno, and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University.

 

Osowski has served as Principal Pianist of the York Symphony Orchestra, Collaborative Pianist for the York County Senior Honors Choir, and he also has performed frequently as orchestral pianist with the Harrisburg and Lancaster Symphony Orchestras. His festival appearances include Yellow Barn and the Tanglewood Music Center. As a soloist, Osowski has appeared with the Reno Chamber Orchestra, the Hershey Symphony, and the University of Nevada Orchestra. A dedicated chamber musician, he has collaborated with the Jupiter, Lydian, and Parker String Quartets, Mobius Percussion, the Mark Morris Dance Group, and Apollo Chamber Players, with whom he presented the regional premiere (2019) of Florence Price’s Piano Quintet in A minor. Other recent highlights include solo and collaborative performances with the York College Music Department in Prague and Budapest (2023).

 

Osowski was the Founder and Artistic Director of the York Chamber Players, the faculty ensemble-in-residence at York College of Pennsylvania. The group presented its inaugural concert in February 2015, a multi-media, multi-disciplinary program entitled “The Music of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna in its Cultural Context”. This event featured music by Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Mahler, and Strauss alongside the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and the art of Klimt and Schiele. The ensemble has since performed music ranging from Telemann to Reich. Osowski frequently performs on Baltimore’s Evolution Concert Series, which is devoted to contemporary music by living composers. He has recently worked with and performed music by several distinguished composers, including Pulitzer Prize winners David Lang and John Luther Adams; Judah Adashi, Martin Bresnick, Christopher Cerrone, Bryce Dessner, and Christopher Theofanidis. Osowski has been praised by the Baltimore Sun for his “impressive skills” and “expert partnering”. 

 

Osowski’s teachers and mentors have included James Winn, Boris Slutsky, Robert McDonald, Michael Friedmann, Sara Laimon, Wei-Yi Yang, and Kirk Reese. In addition, he has participated in coachings and masterclasses with Emanuel Ax, Malcolm Bilson, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, Pamela Frank, Peter Frankl, Gilbert Kalish, Ursula Oppens, Joseph Silverstein, Donald Weilerstein, and Pinchas Zukerman.  

 

In his spare time, Ken enjoys traveling and outdoor activities. He has been backpacking in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, Wyoming’s Wind River Range, Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness, California’s Lost Coast, and The West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island. An avid bicyclist and runner, Ken has competed in numerous triathlons, and he is a three-time finisher of the Savageman Half-Ironman Triathlon, rated by Triathlon Magazine as the most difficult race in the world. He biked across the United States in 1998 and biked from Reno, Nevada to Seattle, Washington in 1999. Ken and his wife Nora live in Flagstaff, Arizona with their dog (Jane) and four cats (Alma, Lucy, Otis, and Sidney).