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Daniel Barenboim Piano, Conductor

Type:	Piano, Conductor
Genre:	Chamber, Concerti, Opera, Orchestral

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General

Biography:

Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires in 1942 to parents of Jewish-Russian descent. He started piano lessons at the age of five with his mother, continuing to study with his father who remained his only teacher. In August 1950, when he was only seven years old, he gave his first official concert in Buenos Aires. The Barenboim family moved to Israel in 1952.

Two years later, in the summer of 1954, the parents brought their son to Salzburg to take part in Igor Markevitch's conducting classes. During that summer he also met Wilhelm Furtwängler and played for him. Furtwängler subsequently wrote a letter including the words, 'The eleven year-old Barenboim is a phenomenon'. In 1955 Daniel Barenboim studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.

Daniel Barenboim made his debut as a pianist in Vienna and Rome in 1952, in Paris in 1955, in London in 1956 and in New York in 1957 with Leopold Stokowski conducting. From then on, he made regular concert tours of Europe, the United States, South America, Australia and the Far East.

He made his first gramophone recordings in 1954 and soon began recording the most important works in the piano repertory. These included complete cycles of the piano sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven and concertos by Mozart both as conductor and pianist, Beethoven (with Otto Klemperer), Brahms (with Sir John Barbirolli) and Bartók (with Pierre Boulez).

During the same period, Mr. Barenboim began to devote more time to conducting. His close relationship with the English Chamber Orchestra, kindled in 1965, lasted over a decade, during which time they performed frequently in England and made tours all over Europe, to the United States and Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Following his debut as a conductor with the Philharmonic Orchestra in London in 1967, Daniel Barenboim was in demand with all the leading European and American symphony orchestras. Between 1975 and 1989 he was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, his tenure marked by a commitment to contemporary music, with performances of works by Lutoslawski, Berio, Boulez, Henze, Dutilleux, Takemitsu and others.

Daniel Barenboim made his opera-conducting debut in 1973 with a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Edinburgh International Festival. He made his Bayreuth debut in 1981 and was a regular visitor there for eighteen years, until 1999, conducting Tristan und Isolde, the Ring, Parsifal and Die Meistersinger.

In 1999 Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said, the Palestinian intellectual, writer and professor for comparative literature, who died in September 2003, founded the West-Eastern Divan Workshop which each summer invites young musicians from Israel and the Middle East to work together, play music together and form an orchestra. The workshop first took place in Weimar, then in Chicago and it has now found its permanent home in Seville. In August 2003 the orchestra played for the first time in an Arab country in the city of Rabat, at the personal invitation of the Moroccan king, Muhammed VI. The workshop does not wish to express any political statements. In this instance, music-making is meant to set an example of the dialogue of cultures.

At the end of October 2002, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Concord in the Spanish town of Oviedo in recognition of their endeavour towards peace. Later in the year, Daniel Barenboim was awarded with the Tolerance Prize by the 'Evangelische Akademie Tutzing' and received the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany by President Johannes Rau. In March 2004, Daniel Barenboim received another important prize for his reconciliation efforts, the Buber-Rosenzweig Medal. In May he was awarded with the Wolf Prize for the Arts in the Knesset in Jerusalem.

Daniel Barenboim recently published two books: The biography 'A Life in Music' and 'Parallels and Paradoxes' which he wrote together with Edward Said.

Recently Daniel Barenboim initiated a programme for musical education that will be developed in the Palestinian Territories. The aim is to teach music in schools as a concept to be used throughout the whole education process. Mr Barenboim is also committed to helping the National Conservatory of Music establish a full Palestinian Youth Orchestra.

In February 2003 Daniel Barenboim was awarded a Grammy for his recording of Wagner's opera Tannhäuser. In March 2003 he and the Staatskapelle Berlin received the Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize.

In 1991 Daniel Barenbom succeeded Sir Georg Solti as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a role that he relinquished in June 2006 and in 1992 he became General Music Director of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin. In the autumn of 2000, the Staatskapelle Berlin elected him Chief Conductor for Life. From the 2006/07 season onwards he develops a close relationship with La Scala, Milan.