Pianist and curator Pedja Mužijević has built his career on creative programming, unexpected pairings of new and old music, and lasting collaborations with artists and ensembles.
He has performed with the Atlanta, Fort Worth, Milwaukee, and New Jersey Symphony orchestras; the Dresden Philharmonic; the Orquesta Sinfónica in Montevideo; the Residentie Orkest in The Hague; the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Santa Fe Pro Musica; and the Shinsei Nihon Orchestra in Tokyo. His solo recitals have taken him to Alice Tully Hall, 92NY, and The Frick Collection in New York; the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center, Dumbarton Oaks, the Phillips Collection, and the National Gallery in Washington, DC; Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse; and Casals Hall and Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo. His Carnegie Hall concerto debut — Mozart's Concerto K. 503 with the Oberlin Symphony and Robert Spano — was recorded live and released on the Oberlin Music label.
Mužijević's interdisciplinary work includes touring with Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project across the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia, and performing with baritone Simon Keenlyside in Trisha Brown's staged version of Schubert's Winterreise at Lincoln Center, the Barbican, La Monnaie, and the Opéra National de Paris, as well as the Holland, Lucerne, and Melbourne festivals. He conceived and premiered Framing Time, a theatrical staging of Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories with lighting design by Burke Brown and choreography by Cesc Gelabert, at Lincoln Center's White Light Festival, with subsequent performances in Germany and Spain. Combining his two passions — music and food — he has performed works by Ravel and Mussorgsky followed by a multi-course dinner prepared by chef David Bouley in his Test Kitchen in New York.
Born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mužijević lives in New York City, where he is artistic administrator at Baryshnikov Arts, which supports artists across disciplines through presentations and residencies. He is also artistic advisor at Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana, a 12,500-acre working sheep and cattle ranch with large-scale outdoor sculptures and a summer concert season. Through this leadership work and his own programming — recitals such as Haydn Dialogues and Homage to Mixtapes; curating a series of concerts celebrating early-20th-century Parisian arts patrons through the music, poetry, and visual art they championed, as well as theatrical concert presentations with lighting design and immersive projection — he has helped reshape how concerts are conceived, presented, and experienced.
His singular experience as a performer, producer, curator, and presenter led him to create the Concert in the 21st Century workshops, which explore what a concert can be and how it can feel more relevant today. He has presented these workshops at the Banff Centre, the Curtis Institute, Juilliard, the Colburn School, and the Verbier Festival Academy.