Joanne Polk

Joanne Polk is a pianist with a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music Degrees from The Juilliard School, and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music. She holds master classes at many Universities and festivals across the country. Joanne is a Steinway artist.

Career
Pianist Joanne Polk was best known to the public when she appeared on the Arabesque Recordings label with her recordings of the complete piano works of American composer Amy Beach (1867–1944). Polk celebrated the centennial of Beach's piano concerto performing the piece under the baton of Paul Goodwin with the English Chamber Orchestra at the Barbican Center in London. The first solo recording for the Beach series in 1998 won the INDIE Award for Best Solo Recording.

One year earlier, she recorded the CD "Completely Clara: Lieder by Clara Wieck Schumann together" for Arabesque Records together with soprano Korliss Uecker. This CD was chosen as "Best of the Year" by The Seattle Times. Joanna Polk, together with baritone Patrick Mason, recorded the CD Songs of Amy Beach, which was nominated in 2007 for the Grammy Award. Polk has released two CDs. The first titled Songs for Pianoforte with solo piano music by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel for the Newport Classic label. The second titled Fanni and Felix Mendelssohn solo piano CD by Polk was released for Bridge Records label.

In 2014, Polk released a CD titled The Flatterer for Steinway & Sons Label. It was solo piano music by French romantic composer Cécile Chaminade. The CD was debuted as number 1 on the Classical Billboard Chart and was a “Pick of the Week” on New York's classical radio station WQXR. In the same year, Joanna Polk was named one of Musical America's Top 30 Professionals of the Year.

In 2017, Joanne Polk released a CD called Gershwin & Wild for the Steinway & Sons publishing house. The CD contains Earl Wilde's transcriptions of Gershwin's songs, as well as Wilde's Piano Sonata. In 2018, she had three-week concerts and tours in five cities in China and Taiwan.

In February 2020, Polk released a CD titled Louise Farrenc Etudes and Variations Piano Solo on Steinway & Sons Label. That same year in December, that CD was on the New York Times' "Best Classical Music of 2020" list. Polk 's last recording was released on September 1, 2023, for Steinway & Sons under the title "The Silence Between the Notes: Louise Farrenc Solo Piano Music Volume 2".

Discography

 * Clara Wieck Schumann: Lieder of Clara Schumann (1993)
 * Zones: Chamber Music by Judith lang Zaimont (1997)
 * Amy Beach: By the Still Waters (1998)
 * Beach: Under the Stars (1998)
 * Amy Beach: Fire-Flies (1998)
 * Beach: Empress of Night (2000)
 * Callisto (2003)
 * Songs of Amy Beach (2005)
 * Completely Clara: Lieder by Clara Wieck Schumann (2006)
 * The Piano Music of Fanny Mendelssohn (2010)
 * Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn (2012)
 * The Flatterer (2014)
 * Gershwin & Wild (2017)
 * Louise Farrenc: Etudes & Variations for Solo Piano (2020)
 * Social Flutterby: Piano Music of David Shenton (2021)
 * The Silence Between the Notes: Louise Farrenc Solo Piano Music Volume 2 (2023)