One of the most imaginative and compelling duo piano teams, Pierce & Jonas have been successfully performing and recording the unusual and neglected two piano repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries since the mid-1980s. The duo has appeared with many symphony orchestras world-wide including those of Houston, San Antonio, Mexico City and Luxembourg as well as the Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, National Symphony of Polish Radio and Television, (Katowice), Luxembourg Radio Symphony, Slovak Philharmonic, State Philharmonic of Kosice, Czech Radio Symphony, Orchestra da Camera di Roma, Chicago Sinfonietta, San Antonio Symphony, Philharmonia Virtuosi and the Utah Symphony. Among their many recent performances include concert appearances in San Diego, Tijuana, Baja, Bratislava, Slovakia and various cities in the Czech Republic. The Pierce and Jonas duo has performed and recorded all the standard repertoire for two pianos and orchestra as well as introduced and recorded many important twentieth century works including Walter Piston's Concerto for Two Pianos, Benjamin Britten's Scottish Ballad, Morton Gould's Dance Variations for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Paul Creston's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Bohuslav Martinu's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, as well as works by Nicolai Berezowsky, Francis Poulenc, Alexander Tansman and Gian Francisco Malipiero. Their recordings include John Cage s Three Dances (Wergo), Charles Ives' Three Pieces in Quartertones (Sony Classical and PITCH) along with the Concerto for Two Pianos & Orchestra (MMC) by the late American composer Robert Starer, who chose the Duo to give the European premier of the work. In 1984, world-renowned Academy Award winning composer, Miklos Rozsa, offered to write for the team a work which became the Spellbound Concerto Fantasie for Two Pianos and Orchestra (a work twice as long as the original Spellbound score, including material not used on the original soundtrack). He also wrote for Pierce & Jonas his New England Concerto for Two Pianos based on music from the films Lydia and Time Out of Mind. The premier performance took place at Salt Lake City and at Snowbird with the Utah Symphony Orchestra, critically acclaimed performances that resulted in the team being invited to give a Command Performance for the Royal Family with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall. In 1997, Pierce & Jonas gave the world premier performance of the Concerto for Two Pianos & Orchestra, composed for them by William Thomas McKinley, with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Valek in Prague. In 1999, Helicon released the world premiere recording of the 1958 Pulitzer Prize winning Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1953) by William Porter.
Starting in 1992, Mr. Pierce and Ms. Jonas presented a unique and exciting series of performances at CAMI Hall, New York University and at MicroFest in Trenton, New Jersey as part of Johnny Reinhard's American Festival of MicroTonal Music. They presented first performances of two piano works by Stefen Konicek (Preludium, Blues and Toccata) and Roland Moser's Homage AO as well as two-piano works by Alan Hohvaness, Mordecai Sandberg, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Bruce Mather and Charles Ives.
