Joela Jones, Guest Artist

Joela Jones
Principal Keyboard, Rudolf Serkin Endowed Chair, The Cleveland Orchestra

Joela Jones, an artist of exceptional versatility, plays piano, organ, harpsichord, celesta, synthesizer and accordion with The Cleveland Orchestra. As soloist with the orchestra, she has performed over 50 different concertos in more than 300 performances at Severance Hall and Blossom Music Center as well as on tour in Europe and Asia. Recent appearances as piano soloist with music director Franz Welser-Möst conducting include Stravinsky’s Movements; Messiaen’s Sept Haïkaï, Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine and Couleurs de la Cité Céleste; and Bernstein’s The Age of Anxiety. Since the renovation of Severance Hall’s Norton Memorial organ in 2001, Ms. Jones has performed works for organ and orchestra by Barber, Poulenc, Saint-Saëns, Janáček, MacMillan and Ives. She is also the principal accompanist for the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and visiting vocal soloists.

A native of Miami, Florida, Joela Jones studied as a child with Ernst von Dohnányi. Recognized as a prodigy, she made her New York debut with Arthur Fiedler and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Ms. Jones has appeared as soloist with the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia and San Francisco, and has performed extensively in solo and chamber music recitals. She teaches advanced orchestral keyboard classes at the Cleveland Institute of Music, chairs collaborative piano at Kent/Blossom Music, is the coordinator of collaborative piano at Cleveland State University and is visiting coach for the New World Symphony in Miami. 

Ms. Jones has recorded works by Poulenc and d’Indy with the London Symphony Orchestra. With The Cleveland Orchestra, she has recorded Janáček’s Capriccio for Left Hand with Christoph von Dohnányi and Messiaen’s La Ville d’en Haut and Sept Haïkaï with Pierre Boulez. Recently, Joela Jones released an album of Claude Bolling’s Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio with Cleveland Orchestra colleagues Richard Weiss, Maximilian Dimoff and Donald Miller.