Amy Briggs Dissanayake has established herself as a leading interpreter of the music of living composers, while also bringing a fresh perspective to music of the past. She recorded two volumes of David Rakowski’s Piano Etudes on Bridge Records to much critical acclaim. Based in Chicago, she is a featured soloist and chamber musician on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW series, where she has worked with composers such as Simon Bainbridge, Pierre Boulez, Oliver Knussen, David Lang, Tania Léon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Augusta Read Thomas. In the 2005-2006 season, she premiered Knussen’s A Fragment from Ophelia’s Last Dance for solo piano. She was awarded a stipend prize at the 2000 Darmstadt Internationale Fereinkurse für Neue Musik.

The Chicago Tribune has called “extraordinary” Dissanayake’s “mastery of what lay on the dense, printed page and beyond,” and the Chicago Sun-Times called her a “ferociously talented pianist.” Classics Today said of volume one of the Rakowski Etudes project, “Dissanayake does a splendid job projecting the music's wit, and her unflappable virtuosity makes even the densest writing sound effortless... a marvelous disc that piano fanciers should snap up without hesitation.” In addition, the New York Times praised her recent recording of Augusta Read Thomas’s six Piano Etudes as “elegant” and “precisely shaded.”

Dissanayake has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa. In 1993, she was selected by the United States Information Agency to tour Africa and South Asia as a United States Artistic Ambassador. Her highly acclaimed concerts combined traditional repertoire with contemporary American music. Today, her recital programs connect composers from all eras and nationalities. She has performed with the Callisto Ensemble, the Chicago Contemporary Players, Chicago Pro Musica, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Klang, and the Empyrean Ensemble, and as an extra keyboardist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She has also been a prizewinner in the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition and the Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition.

Amy Briggs Dissanayake has appeared as soloist with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, New Hampshire Philharmonic, and the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka, among others, and her live and recorded performances have been featured on radio stations around the United States and Europe. Recent performances include the Rock Hotel Piano Festival in New York City, the world premiere of Jeffrey Mumford’s new piano quintet with the Pacifica Quartet, a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, and solo recitals in the People’s Republic of China. Recordings soon to be released include a disc of 20th and 21st century tangos for solo piano, a concerto for piano and wind ensemble of George Flynn on Southport Records, and chamber music recordings of Conlon Nancarrow and Erik Oña for Wergo. Upcoming engagements include a performance with Ursula Oppens and the Mark Morris Dance Company at the Ravinia Festival, as well as solo recitals at Symphony Space in New York City and an appearance on the Keys to the Future Piano Festival in New York City. A graduate of Skidmore College and DePaul University , Ms. Dissanayake studied with Ursula Oppens at Northwestern University, where she earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance. She is a Steinway Artist .