As a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, Ms. Kies studied with Hans Graf in Vienna, Austria. Further studies took her to Sienna, Italy, and eventually back to Boston, where she worked with pianists Russell Sherman and Anthony di Bonaventura. In 1988, she was awarded an Individual Artists Fellowship by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.
Ms. Kies has an active performing and teaching career. She has been on the faculty of Tufts University, taught at Phillips Exeter Academy from 1981-1995, and has been a member of the University of New Hampshire piano faculty since 1995. She gives frequent master classes and enjoys the lecture-recital format, having presented such pieces as Bach's Goldberg Variations, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, and Schumann's Carnaval preceded by informal discussions of the music. These programs have been among her most popular.
She has appeared on numerous campuses and series, including Tufts University, U.N.H., York University (Canada), St. Paul's Church, Trinity (Toronto), Harvard, Brandeis, New York University, The Currier Art Gallery, Ogonquit Festival (Maine), Strawbery Banke Festival, Amerikahaus (Vienna), Academia Chigiana (Italy), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, MIT, Jordan Hall, Merkin Recital Hall (N.Y.), the Reading Pennsylvania Chamber Series, Villanova University, and on board the luxury liner QE 2. Of her playing, the Boston Globe has written "…simply extraordinary!".
In addition to her solo performances, Ms. Kies makes frequent chamber music appearances. She has performed with such artists as David Ripley, James Maddelena, Sharon Baker, Jenni Carbaugh Cook, Susan Larson, Gloria DePasquale, Eric Pritchard, Charles Forbes, Nic Orovich, and the DePasquale String Quartet. Additionally, Ms. Kies performs regularly with her husband, pianist Christopher Kies. The Kies' have premiered several two-piano compositions (for the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, the Washington Square Chamber Series, and others); they perform four-hand and two-piano standard repertoire as well. Recent concerts have featured the two-piano versions of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Petrouchka, as well as two performances of Mozart's Concerto in E flat for Two Pianos.
In 1999, Ms. Kies released a CD of vocal/piano repertoire with bass-baritone David Ripley. Called "superb" in a recent review, this CD features the music of Ives, Faure, Duparc, Schubert, and Brahms. Ms. Kies and Mr. Ripley's recent recording of songs of Faure and Duparc, Ne Point Passer,will be released on the Centaur label this spring. Other recently released CD's include those of vocal/piano repertoire by women composers with soprano Jenni Carbaugh Cook, and another of wind/piano music with the UNH -based trio Sospiri.
Ms. Kies has also completed the recording of a CD of vocal/piano repertoire by women composers with soprano Jenni Carbaugh Cook, and another of wind/piano music with the UNH -based trio Sospiri, both to be released soon.
Highlights of recent seasons included a performance of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G with the Granite State Orchestra, hailed by critics as "spectacular", as well as a performance of the Mozart C Minor Piano Concerto, also with the Granite State Orchestra. In June, 2003, Ms. Kies traveled to North Carolina with Sospiri for an invitational performance at the International Double Reed Society Convention, where they performed works by David Diamond and UNH composer Christopher Kies. Also in June, 2003, Ms. Kies presented three concerts in Vienna, Austria, with soprano Jenni Carbaugh Cook; in July, she toured Tuscany with a solo program featuring the complete Goyescas of Enrique Granados.
Highlights for the 2005-06 season include performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra DePasquale Quartet in Vermont, Reading, Pennsylavania, and Philadelphia, as well as recitals with 'cellist Gloria DePasquale; choreographed performances of Schumann's Carnaval, a performance of Mozart's C Minor Piano Concerto with the New Hampshire Philharmonic, a performance of Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and numerous other solo and chamber recitals.
Arlene Kies currently resides with her husband and their three daughters in Durham, N.H.