Jan Simon began playing the piano under the guidance of his father, composer, conductor, and pianist Ladislav Simon. He studied at the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts, in Switzerland with Homero Francesch and at the Lübeck University of Music with James Tocco, where he later was appointed as a pedagogue.
He has won various prizes in international music competitions, including the Prague Spring Competition, and his greatest success came in 1991 when he won the bronze medal at the Queen Elizabeth Piano Competition in Brussels.
Jan Simon has performed on four continents with renowned orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra London, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic and Beethoven Orchester Bonn. He has worked with various famous conductors such as Jiří Bělohlávek, David Robertson, Jakub Hrůša and Vasily Sinaisky. As a chamber music partner, he worked primarily with cellist Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt and with violinist Josef Suk, the Artemis Quartet, Panocha, and the Pražák Quartet.
Music critics praise his recordings of piano concertos by Fryderyk Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven. For his recording of Erwin Schulhoff’s Piano Concertos, he received the “Cannes Classical Award 95”.
For fourteen years, he was director of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra. Since autumn 2018, he has been the artistic director of the Academy of Classical Music and the director of the International Music Festival “Dvořákova Praha”, where, in addition to being responsible for the dramaturgy and organization of the entire festival, he is also involved in educational projects for young musicians.