Oliver Jia
Oliver Jia
Assistant Professor of Music - Piano & Klipsch Artist-in-Residence
SFA 304
Dr. Oliver Jia, piano
Described as an artist with 鈥渋ncomparable color and beauty of sound鈥� (Jan Popis, Chopin
Gazeta: 2005) pianist Oliver Jia has performed for audiences all over the world, and actively
appears in concerts on three major continents. With a repertoire of dozens of concerti in addition
to over two hundred solo and chamber works, Oliver made his official debut at Isaac Stern
Auditorium in Carnegie Hall under the baton of the late Maestro James DePreist, performing
Sergei Prokofiev鈥檚 Piano Concerto no. 5 with the Juilliard Orchestra.
As a testament to his wide-ranging performance career, Oliver has performed with the
Orchestra of St Luke鈥檚, the Fort Worth Symphony, the China National Symphony, the Bursa
Symphony, and the Juilliard Orchestra, among others. He has made solo and concerti
appearances at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, Royal
Dublin Society, and the Manhattan Center, as well as the premier concert halls in mainland
China. Other notable events include performance tours and interviews in Italy, China, Japan as
well as individual recitals in Warsaw, Stockholm, Dublin, Hastings, Ankara, Bursa, and
numerous other European cities.
In addition to his solo engagements, Oliver is an engaged chamber musician and has
collaborated with numerous chamber ensembles, especially in the North American region. He is
also busy as a collaborative pianist, and has accompanied numerous string, woodwind, and vocal
musicians in various projects. As a teacher, Oliver has maintained a private studio for two
decades, teaching both solo piano and chamber music. During 2017-2019, he was a member of
the piano faculty at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley; between 2019-2025, he taught at Bilkent University (in Ankara, Turkey). Both his private as well as university students have won
dozens of prizes at piano competitions worldwide.
Finally, Oliver is strongly involved in musical research. As part of his doctoral
dissertation, Oliver presented a two-hour lecture recital on the complete set of Fr茅d茅ric Chopin鈥檚
monumental 脡tudes, complete with a performance and a talk on the subject. In addition, he has
written several research papers; these pertain to unique aspects in musicology that focus on
topics not often featured in the mainstream of academia publications. These include 鈥�Josquin des
Prez: A Study in Counterpoint鈥� (New Haven, CT. 2014), 鈥�Transcriptions: The Piano as a
Broadcasting Instrument鈥� (New York, NY. 2012), and 鈥�War of the Romantics: Artistic Ideals in
Conflict鈥� (New York, NY. 2006).
Oliver was born in Nanking to a family with significant musical backgrounds (his
grandparents served as distinguished opera directors for decades). He spent his childhood in
Stockholm, and holds dual Swedish-American citizenship. Oliver holds a Doctor of Musical Arts
degree from the University of Michigan, an Artist Diploma from Yale University, and Master of
Music, Bachelor of Music, and Pre-college degrees from The Juilliard School. His major
instructors have included Logan Skelton, Peter Frankl, Jerome Lowenthal, Yoheved Kaplinsky,
Oxana Yablonskaya, and Paul van Ness.
Oliver has served as Klipsch Artist-in-Residence & Chair of Piano at the University of
Central Arkansas since 2025.