Sir András Schiff

Sir András Schiff was born in Budapest in 1953. He took his first piano lessons at the age of five from Elisabeth Vadász, later continuing his studies with Pál Kadosa, György Kurtág, and Ferenc Rados at the Franz Liszt Academy in his native city and with George Malcolm in London. His artistic work focuses on the piano works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, and Bartók. Since 2004, Schiff has performed the complete Beethoven sonata cycle in more than 20 cities and recorded it on CD. He regularly performs with major orchestras and focuses on interpreting the piano concertos of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart while himself conducting. For this purpose, he founded the Cappella Andrea Barca in 1999 and he also works closely with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Schiff has also been a passionate chamber musician since his early youth. He directed the Musiktage Mondsee from 1989 to 1998, the Ittingen Whitsun Concerts (together with Heinz Holliger) from 1995 to 2013, and since 1998 he has been curating the Omaggio a Palladio concert series in Vicenza. Sir András Schiff has been awarded the Robert Schumann Prize (2011), the Golden Mozart Medal (2012), and the Gold Medal of the London Royal Philharmonic Society (2013). In June 2014, Queen Elizabeth II elevated him to the peerage, and in 2018 the Prince of Wales conferred an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Music on him. In June 2022, Sir András Schiff was presented with the City of Leipzig’s Bach Medal as “one of the most important Bach interpreters of our time.” He has received international prizes for many of his recordings; his most recent release appeared in 2023 and is a selection of Bach’s keyboard works, which he recorded on the clavichord. His book Music Comes Out of Silence was published in 2017. Sir András Schiff has taken a stand against the alarming political developments in Hungary. In response to insulting attacks from Hungarian nationalists, he no longer gives concerts in his homeland.

Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on 21 August 1990 in a recital of works by Janáček, Bartók, Schubert, and Haydn.

August 2023