Jana Luksts is a Canadian-Latvian pianist dedicated to the performance of experimental and contemporary classical music, based in Germany.

Jana’s work as a performer and project curator aims to provide new - surprising, thoughtful, engaging - listening and viewing experiences, by incorporating extra-musical thematic material refracting current social and historical topics, and inviting audiences to evade traditional concert-viewing formats. 

Her programming and curation seeks to elevate the work of composers and collaborators around her, with a special interest in speech/movement, unconventional notation (complexism, graphic notation) and prosthesis, as lent to the performer through unconventional notation and ensemble formations, in addition to electronic/robotic forms of prosthesis. 

From Beethoven to Ferneyhough, Jana has been heard in major concert halls throughout Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Czech Republic, Greece, Finland, Canada, and major radio stations in Canada (Canadian Broadcasting Company) and Germany (hr2-kultur). 

Jana’s most recent release (July 2023) can be viewed here: an audio-visual production in collaboration with f:t and NYC-based composer George Katehis filmed at Musikbrauerei Berlin, with the support of the Goethe Institut.

Jana holds upcoming engagements (Fall 2023) with Reactive Ensemble, during their final instalment as ensemble-in-residence at Musikakademie Rheinsberg. Alongside flutist/curator Sara Constant, Jana will exhibit and perform “re:frame”, a commissioning project for 3-dimensional graphic scores, in Toronto, Stuttgart (Kunstraum 34), and Berlin (Hošek Contemporary), with the generous support of the Canada Arts Council.

In her 2022-23 season, Jana held engagements at transmediale (Berlin) performing “MILLIONS OF EXPERIENCES - HUGE IF TRUE” alongside Jennifer Walshe & Wobbly, Alte Feuerwache Köln alongside f:t, Unerhörte Musik and Ölberg-Kirche Kreuzberg (Berlin) as a part of field notes’ Monat der Zeitgenössische Musik alongside soprano Kanae Mizobuchi (featuring a performance of Mark Andre’s “iv 17” with the composer in attendance), and THE PRESENT Art Festival (Wuppertal), among others. With f:t, a trio of three pianists of which she is a founding member (alongside Magdalena Cerezo and Mabel Yu-Ting Huang), she recorded the majority of existing works for three pianos at Fleischmarkthalle Karlsruhe, supported by Ensemble Funding from Musikfonds e.V., to be released later this year. Alongside Stuttgart-based Reactive Ensemble, she held an ensemble-in-residence for the 2022-23 season at Musikakademie Rheinsberg.

As a soloist, Jana has performed at Orf RadioKulturhaus (Vienna), Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (Bern), hr-Sendesaal (Frankfurt), Musik der Jahrhunderte (Stuttgart), Gedok e.V. (Stuttgart), Kavalierhaus Rheinsberg (Rheinsberg), Ölberg-Kirche (Berlin), Musikbrauerei (Berlin), Altefeuerwache Köln (Cologne), Music Gallery (Toronto), Bunker Lane Press (Toronto), Pallas (Thessaloniki), Grypario Cultural Center (Mykonos), and as a soloist alongside the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra premiering Ernst Schneider’s “Piano Concerto No. 2”. 

As a guest artist, Jana has performed at festivals and residencies including transmediale (Berlin), Musikakademie Rheinsberg (Rheinsberg), THE PRESENT Art Festival (Wuppertal), Internationale Digitalkunst Festival (Stuttgart), Sound Symposium XIX (Newfoundland), Delian Academy for New Music (Mykonos) where she also led the Experimental Collaboration Workshop, and the Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Darmstadt) as part of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony (hr-Sinfonieorchester). As a participant, she has performed and taken part in courses at the Klangspuren Schwaz Festival für Neue Musik (Innsbruck, IEMA Ensemble), Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Darmstadt, Studio Nicolas Hodges), Musikiin Aika/Time of Music (Finland, Studio Nicolas Hodges/Trio Accanto), and the Summer institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP, Boston, Studio Stephen Drury). 

Jana has given lectures and workshops on complexism, graphic scores, multi-media integration, and extra-musical material in new compositions for piano at the University of Toronto (Canada), Delian Academy for New Music (Mykonos), and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). 

As a curator, Jana is currently exhibiting “re:frame”, a commissioning and artistic research project of three-dimenstional graphic scores, to be performed in non-music spaces by flute, piano, synthesizer, and electronics. Supported by the Explore & Create component of the Canada Arts Council, “re:frame” is conducted alongside flutist-curator Sara Constant, with newly commissioned three-dimensional graphic scores by Symon Henry and Éloïse Plamandon-Pagé (Quebec), Esthir Lemi (Greece), and R.E. Smith (Australia), with scheduled performance in Germany and Canada in the 2023-24 season. In 2019, Jana was a guest curator for the “Muted Blast 2.0” series presented by Greek composer-curator collective meta.ksi. 

Jana’s artistic work has been kindly supported by Musikfonds e.V., GVL Neustart Kultur, Canada Council for the Arts, Women’s Art Association of Canada, BC Arts Council, and the 42nd Eckhardt-Grammaté National Music Competition, of which she was the 2nd prize winner. 

Jana’s involvement with contemporary classical music has allowed her to work in close proximity with composers such as Michael Finnissy, Helmut Lachenmann, Mark Andre, Marco Stroppa, Jennifer Walshe, and Philippe Leroux.

Jana completed her Master of New Music with Prof. Nicolas Hodges in July 2021 at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart. After finishing her formative studies with Elizabeth Wocks (Piano) and Ken Stromberg (Violin) in Kelowna (British Columbia, Canada) she completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto, supported in full by the Alice & Armen Matheson Scholarship, studying with Dr. Jamie Parker.