Even beyond his place among the giants of his generation of pianists, Byron Janis played a crucial role well beyond the performing world. He was involved in national and international politics, playing a major role in global relationships with the Soviet Union and Cuba, and was frequently invited by U.S. presidents to perform at the White House. He was renowned for his Chopin interpretations, including the performance of manuscripts that he discovered. Janis served as a National Ambassador to the Arts for the Arthritis Foundation; he was also the subject of a documentary, a composer, and an author. Janis was born Byron Yanks on March 24, 1928, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. His parents shortened the family surname to Yanks when they emigrated to the U.S. before settling on Janis. Byron began piano lessons early after his parents discovered he had perfect pitch, studying initially with Abraham Litow. At eight, he moved with his mother and sister to New York to study with Josef Lhévinne, Rosina Lhévinne, and Adele Marcus, studying with the latter for six years. An accident left the little finger on his left hand numb, and though doctors told him he would never perform again, Janis persevered by adjusting the way he approached the keyboard and was heard two months later on a radio broadcast. He performed his first recital at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Music Hall in 1937, and he made his orchestral debut at age 15 with a performance of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra under its founder, Arturo Toscanini. Pianist Vladimir Horowitz was a member of the audience at that performance, and the following year, Horowitz brought Janis on as his first student. Two years later, Janis became the youngest artist ever to sign with RCA Victor, and he made his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1948, launching an international performing career. In 1953, he married June Dickson, and the couple had one child, Stefan Janis; they divorced in 1965. In 1958, Janis performed in Cuba as one of the last American musicians to perform in the country before Fidel Castro's takeover. Two years later, Janis was chosen as a U.S. Cultural Ambassador to the Soviet Union. A 1962 performance of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 and Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 1 with Kirill Kondrashin leading the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra was issued on Mercury Living Presence and was the first album recorded in Moscow by an American recording company. That recording of the Prokofiev concerto is still considered a benchmark. In 1966, Janis married Maria Cooper, daughter of movie actor Gary Cooper, and the following year, Janis made a remarkable discovery while on a European tour. In Frances's Château de Thoiry, he discovered two previously unknown waltz manuscripts from 1833 by Chopin, landing Janis on the cover of The New York Times. In 1973, while at Yale leading masterclasses, Janus chanced upon two unknown manuscripts of the same two waltzes in an earlier version with different markings. That year, he developed psoriatic arthritis in both hands and wrists but kept it a secret and continued performing and recording. Following a performance at the White House in 1985, First Lady Nancy Reagan revealed Janis' condition and named him National Ambassador to the Arts for the Arthritis Foundation. Despite several surgeries and decreased use of his hands, he continued to perform and compose, and was a major advocate on behalf of those affected by the disease. In 1993, Janis composed the music for an off-Broadway adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and wrote music for several television shows. He also made appearances on such shows as The Tonight Show and CBS Sunday Morning. In the late '90s, Janis made a return to Cuba, becoming the first American concert pianist to perform there in 40 years. In 2009, he was the subject of the Peter Rosen documentary The Byron Janis Story, and the following year, Janis and his wife wrote the autobiography Chopin and Beyond: My Extraordinary Life in Music and the Paranormal. In later life, he continued his association with the Arthritis Foundation as a mentor for children with juvenile arthritis. In 2018, Janis issued Byron Janis Live from Leningrad 1960, a recording that Janis was unaware of but that had circulated in the Soviet Union. Janis died in Manhattan on March 14, 2024, at age 95. ~ Keith Finke, Rovi