Biography

Pianist, composer and teacher Jon Michael Iverson completed his Master of Music degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College of Rider University, Princeton, NJ. While at Westminster he studied piano pedagogy with the top pedagogues in the field, including Phyllis Alpert Lehrer, Ingrid Jacobson Clarfield, Dr. James Goldsworthy and Jean Stackhouse. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN, where he studied piano with Katherine Faricy and theory, composition, and orchestration with Dr. James Callahan. As a pianist, Iverson performs regularly as soloist, accompanist and chamber musician around the Twin Cities area and has been heard with local Minnesota orchestras in performances of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto ("Emperor") and the Liszt E-flat Piano Concerto. His private piano instructors have included Phyllis Alpert Lehrer, J. J. Penna, Katherine Faricy and Kenneth Huber; he has performed in numerous master classes with distinguished pianists and teachers including Seymour Bernstein and Paul Sheftel. As a composer, Iverson’s String Quartet No. 01 was featured on Essays of Note – a now syndicated Minnesota radio show hosted by Dr. William ‘Bill’ Banfield – on the program “Young Lions: Up and Coming Young Composers.” His Overture to an Unwritten Tragedy was premiered under the baton of Dr. Matthew George and his Prelude, Passacaglia and Recitative for solo violin and In Memoriam for solo viola have been taken on tour throughout Europe with English violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved. As a teacher, Iverson started teaching at the age of fourteen under the guidance of his mother, Mary Lou Iverson, NCTM. Shortly after being awarded first prize in the Westminster graduate piano competition, he was granted a teaching position at the Westminster Conservatory and completed an intensive internship co-teaching Ingrid Jacobson Clarfield’s wunderkind. Iverson has served on faculty at the University of St. Thomas, his undergraduate alma mater, and is now teaching exclusively for the MacPhail Center for Music, Minneapolis, MN. At the age of 28, he had already been publically recognized as "an expert teacher" by Stuart MacPhail, the sole living relative of the founder of the prestigious MacPhail Center for Music. Iverson has also been described as "a natural-born teacher" and as "a master teacher;" his teaching is noted for it's warmth, humor and rapport. In addition to giving master classes, clinics, and workshops, Iverson is an active adjudicator for contests and competitions around Minnesota. His students regularly perform in recitals and events.

Web Exclusive Recordings

Hear Jon Michael Iverson's recordings of four pieces by Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu (b. 1953).  These selections come from a collection of seven books of suites entitled Pleiades Dances.  As Yoshimatsu describes them, "these new pieces, written on the subjects of the seven stars of the Pleiades, the seven colors of the rainbow, the seven tones of various modes, the seven rhythms from triple time to nonuple and so forth, are the results of my attempt to create 'a new form of preludes for the modern piano.' "

Recorded selections include:

1)  "Apple Seed Dance," from Book 1, Op. 27 (1986)

2)  "Fragmentary Dance," from Book 2, Op. 28 (1987)

3)  "Dance Toward East," from Book 4, Op. 50 (1992)

4)  "Season of Alleluia," from Book 4, Op. 50 (1992)