Kenneth Weiss was born in New York City where he graduated from the High School of Performing Arts. He received a Bachelors of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (USA) and continued his studies with Gustav Leonhardt at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam. From 1990 to 1993 Kenneth Weiss was Musical Assistant to William Christie at Les Arts Florissants for numerous opera productions and recordings. He later conducted Les Arts Florissants in Doux Mensonges by the choreographer Jiri Kylian at the Paris Opera, and was also co-director with William Christie of the first three editions of Les Arts Florissants' Jardin des Voix programme in 2002, 2005 and 2007.

Kenneth Weiss focuses on recitals, Baroque chamber music and conducting. His most recent harpsichord recitals include Nüremburg, Montpellier, Barcelona, Dijon, Geneva, Antwerp, the Cité de la musique in Paris, Madrid, Festival de La Roque d’Anthéron, Santander, Barcelona, San Sebastian, the Innsbruck Early Music Festival and Santiago de Compostela. As a soloist he has performed with Europa Galante, direction Fabio Biondi, and the Collegium Vocal de Gent directed by Philippe Herreweghe, and since 2005 has been giving Bach recitals with Fabio Biondi, including concerts at the Aix en Provence Festival and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris.

In collaboration with the choreographer Trisha Brown, Kenneth Weiss is musical director of M.O., a ballet on Bach's Musical Offering, first performed at La Monnaie in Brussels followed by an international tour.

In December 2004 Kenneth Weiss was musical director of the Aix-en-Provence European Music Academy's staged production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas which was revived in the Aix-en-Provence Festival in July 2006. He was reinvited by the Aix European Music Academy to direct a new Monteverdi Madrigal staged production based around the Combatimento for the 2007 Festival. In 2008 both the Dido and Aeneas and Madrigal productions were revived on tour with performances including the Lille opera, Bordeaux opera and the Monte Carlo opera. In July 2008 he directed a staged production of two ‘Tonadillas Escenicas’, late 18th Century Spanish works by Esteve and De Laserna at the Almagro festival in Spain, followed by a staged production of Dido and Aeneas in Madrid with the Spanish Baroque ensemble Forma Antiqva.

Kenneth Weiss has conducted the Orchestre National des Pays de Loire, Orchestre de Rouen, the orchestra of the Aix-en-Provence European Music Academy on tour in Spain, and the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie. He has also conducted The English Concert in a Handel programme including organ concertos in France, Spain and Germany, an all-Bach programme with the Belgian orchestra B'Rock in Gent and Brussels, and the Danish orchestra Concerto Copenhagen with Handel's Brockes Passion for the Spanish Cathedrals Festival.

In 2010 Kenneth Weiss performs duo programs with the violinist Monica Huggett at the Carnegie Hall in New York and with Fabio Biondi in France. He will direct Mozart's Marriage of Figaro at La Cité de la musique in Paris, Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea at the Bilbao and Oviedo Operas, and conducts the Ensemble Orchestral de Basse Normandie in Caen. He also takes part in the first European concert of Juilliard Baroque at the Madrid National Auditorium, performing the complete Brandenburg concertos, and will be a jury member of the Leipzig and Bruges harpsichord competitions.

In 2001 Satirino records released the first in a series of highly acclaimed solo harpsichord recordings: Bach's Partitas, Scarlatti sonatas, Rameau Opera and Ballet transcriptions (on two of the historical instruments in the Musée de la musique in Paris), an album including Bach's Italian Concerto, the French Overture and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, Scarlatti’s ‘Essercizi per gravicembalo’, coproduced with the Madrid Caja Bank’s Spanish music label Los SIGLOS de ORO, and most recently a live recording of a recital of the Goldberg Variations at the Théâtre St Louis in Pau, France, on October 12th 2008, released in the spring of 2009.

Kenneth Weiss teaches at the Paris Conservatory and has recently been appointed harpsichord professor at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

January 2010




Press reviews

BBC Music Magazine - July 2004 - Nicholas Anderson - Rameau, Satirino Records As a former musical assistant to Willaim Christie and Les Arts Florissants, Weiss knows very well how to translate the varied gestures and kinetic energy of Rameau's beguiling dances from the orchestra pit to the manuels of a harpsichord. His playing, refined in its technique and communicative in its inflections, pulsates with life, vividly evoking Pygmalion's sculptor's hammer at one moment and the many colourful vignettes of Les Indes galantes at the next. an exhilarating recital, with a recording that faithfully captures the character of two fine instruments by Goujon (c1740) and Hemsch (1761).

Gramophone - January 2003 - John Duarte - Scarlatti, Satirino Records Kenneth Weiss. offers a mixed programme, superbly played at well-judged tempi and recorded with clarity.

Le Monde - 5 January 2002 - Renaud Machart - Bach Partitas, Satirino Records This young American harpsichordist. tackling one of the pinnacles of keyboard music, has produced a masterpiece. His calm, composed and subtle approach to these dance suites is magnificently noble. ["Sarabande" de la Partita n°6] In this central piece, Weiss seems to be improvising at the same time as sustaining the spinal column of this superiorly written elegy. We also appreciate the accentuated rubato but very perfection of taste of the allemandes, and his "ouverture" to the Partita n°4, impeccably upright.

Diapason - November 2001 - Jean-Luc Macia - Bach Partitas, Satirino Records Kenneth Weiss is a brilliant musician, distinguished and inventive, to whom we owe, among others, an excellent recording of the Goldberg Variations. (in the 6 Partitas) Weiss's nimble playing, vigorous and poetic, compels admiration. his unbridled yet always controlled virtuosity show him to be a born musician, undeniably gifted with expressive means.

Nouvel Observateur - October 2001 - Jacques Drillon - Bach Partitas, Satirino Records It meditates, dreams, at the same time as being controlled with a firm hand. Could we have imagined, ten years ago, that Bach would be presented in such an expressive, expressionist, free and easy, flexible way?

Le Temps - Genève - 6 October 2001- Julian Sykes - Bach Partitas, Satirino Records This Bach stretches, overflows, dares unexpected slow tempi and explores new territory. the first Partitas are exceptionally poetic. The fourth explodes in a multi-coloured fireworks display.. The sixth reaches zeniths of inspiration.

Télégramme de Brest - 20 October 2001 To the technical prowess and sobriety of these great performers (Gustav Leonhardt and Glenn Gould), Kenneth Weiss adds a refinement, joy and sensuality that we are little used to associating with the harpsichord. His playing is flowing and velvet-like.