Pianist XAK BJERKEN has given solo and chamber music recitals in Europe and throughout the United States and has appeared as soloist with, among others, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, and the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. He has performed in Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall, the Phillips Collection, and the Kennedy Center, and was the director of two festivals of twentieth-century music: Angels, Saints and Birdsong: A Messiaen Festival and Through the Iron Curtain: Music of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Mr. Bjerken has held chamber music residencies at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and is the pianist of the Los Angeles Piano Quartet, which tours the U.S. regularly. He has recorded two discs with violist Michael Zaretsky on the Artona Label, and chamber music for Koch International, Chandos, Albany Records, and Mobius Productions. High Rise, a disc of solo works by seven living composers, was released in January 2001 by CRI. Mr. Bjerken earned his bachelor's degree cum laude at UCLA, studying with Aube Tzerko, and his master's and doctoral degrees from the Peabody Institute as a student and teaching assistant to Leon Fleisher. He is an assistant professor of music at Cornell University.