Patricia Goodson, Pianist

American pianist Patricia Goodson is active as a solo recitalist and chamber musician throughout Europe and North America. Her playing, praised by critics as “powerful and seductive” and “breathtakingly virtuosic,” has been featured on radio and television throughout Europe and the US.

Together with the renowned Stamic Quartet, Ms. Goodson has recently recorded a CD of chamber and solo piano works of Ukrainian composer Vasyl Barvinskiy for Brilliant Classics, set for release in early 2027..

Her broad repertoire encompasses music by Czech composers from all periods, including Fibich, Suk, Tomášek, Janáček, Foerster, Fišer, Kapr, Loudová, Martinů, Matoušek, and Dvořák, as well as the standard repertoire. She works actively with contemporary composers and has had many pieces written especially for her. Her work has been the subject of a show on BBC World Service radio.

Her discography includes the complete piano works of Czech composer Josef Bohuslav Foerster. Hailed as “superb”, “beautifully nuanced,” and “essential”, the four-CD set marks the first time Foerster`s works have been commercially recorded.

Ms. Goodson was a founding director of composer Geraldine Mucha`s archive. A close friend of the composer, Goodson recorded Mucha`s piano concerto with the Hradec Králové Philharmonic orchestra under conductor Andreas Sebastian Weiser for the Arco Diva label. For Brilliant Classics, together with oboist Vilem Veverka and the Stamic Quartet, she recorded a selection of Mucha`s solo and chamber works.

Similarly, she worked closely with her friend New Zealand composer Dame Gillian Whitehead for a series of concerts and a CD of chamber and solo music available on Rattle Records.

She has championed the works of composers, such as Rosy Wertheim, whose lives and careers were affected by the Holocaust.

Her solo CD of contemporary American music, 'Strange Attractors', for Albany Records, received uniformly enthusiastic, positive reviews, as did a chamber and solo recording of music by New Zealand composer, Dame Gillian Whitehead, for Rattle Records.

Ms. Goodson has lived full-time in Prague since 1991 and came to Prague from Boston, where she served as a music tutor and chamber music coach at Harvard University. While in Boston, she performed extensively throughout New England as a soloist and chamber musician and toured widely as a recitalist. She was a regular performer with the Harvard Group for New Music, with whom she premiered numerous works. She currently teaches piano performance at New York University, Prague.

In addition to her work as a performer, Ms. Goodson was responsible for the music and sound effects in early Atari and Bally-Midway video games, the best-known of which is Jr. Pac-Man. She also co-hosted the Encore program for Radio Prague and wrote about music and food for the Prague Post.

She received her education at Duke University (BA, with honors) and at the Peabody Conservatory (MM).