Daniel Barenboim

The conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires in 1942. Both his parents were piano teachers and trained him early on the keyboard. He gave his first public performance at the age of seven. In 1952, the family moved from Argentina to Israel, where Barenboim won a scholarship through the American-Israel Cultural Foundation Competition to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1953. He also took conducting courses with Igor Markevitch and in 1954 was introduced to Wilhelm Furtwängler, who described him as a “phenomenon.” Barenboim spent the first phase of his career as an internationally successful concert pianist. Since his debut leading the Philharmonia Orchestra (1967), he has also been sought after as a conductor by the world’s finest orchestras. Barenboim’s first permanent position was as conductor of the Orchestre de Paris from 1975 to 1989; from 1991 to 2006, he helmed the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He made his operatic debut in 1973 with Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Edinburgh Festival; in 1981, he conducted for the first time at Bayreuth, where he returned every summer until 1999. From 1992 to January 2023, Daniel Barenboim was General Music Director of the Berlin Staatsoper; he remains associated with the Staatskapelle Berlin, which elected him Chief Conductor for Life in 2000. From 2007 to 2014, he made a significant mark on La Scala in Milan, most recently as Music Director. Barenboim founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 1999; it brings together young musicians who are primarily from Israel and Arab countries. In 2017, he opened the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, where he performs works from the Classical period to the present with his newly founded Boulez Ensemble. For his artistic and cultural-political work, Barenboim has received such distinctions as the Prince of Asturias Award, the Buber-Rosenzweig Medal, the Siemens Music Prize, the Goethe Medal, and the Praemium Imperiale. The City of Berlin named him an honorary citizen in 2023.

Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on 25 August 1966, performing piano concertos by Mozart and Beethoven with the English Chamber Orchestra.

July 2023

Further Information: www.danielbarenboim.com