Daniel Barenboim

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, later studying with his father who remained his only other teacher. At the age of seven he gave his first public concert in Buenos Aires. In 1952 the family moved to Israel.
At the age of eleven Daniel Barenboim took part in Igor Markevich’s conducting classes in Salzburg. In 1954 he also met Wilhelm Furtwängler, who subsequently wrote, ”The eleven year-old Daniel Barenboim is a phenomenon.” In 1955 Barenboim studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.
Daniel Barenboim made his international debut as a solo pianist in Vienna and Rome in 1952, thereafter in Paris (1955), in London (1956) and in New York (1957), where he played under Leopold Stokowski. From then on, he made regular concert tours of the United States and Europe as well as South America, Australia and Asia.
He began making gramophone recordings in 1954. In the 1960s he recorded the Beethoven concerti with Otto Klemperer, the Brahms concerti with Sir John Barbirolli, and all the Mozart concerti with the English Chamber Orchestra as both soloist and conductor.
During the same period, Daniel Barenboim began to devote more time to conducting. His close relationship with the English Chamber Orchestra lasted over a decade, during which time they performed throughout the world, including Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Since his conducting debut with the New Philharmonia Orchestra in London in 1967, Daniel Barenboim has been in demand with all the leading orchestras of the world. 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 appeared there until 1999, conducting Tristan und Isolde, the Ring, Parsifal and Die Meistersinger.
From 1991-2006 he was chief conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2006 the orchestra elected him honorary conductor for life. He has been General Music Director of the Staatsoper Berlin since 1992, from 1992-2002 also its artistic director. In 2000 the Staatskapelle Berlin elected him chief conductor for life.
In 1999 he founded, together with the Palestinian literary scholar Edward Said, the West-Eastern Divan orchestra, which brings together young musicians from Israel, Palestine and the Arab countries.
Daniel Barenboim has been ”Maestro Scaligero” at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan since 2007 and regularly conducts operas and concerts there.
Barenboim has received many awards, including with Edward Said the ”Principe de Asturias” prize in the category international understanding for their peace efforts in the Middle East, the Tolerance Award from the Evangelische Akademie Tutzing, the Great Cross with Star of the German Order of Merit, the Buber Rosenzweig Medal, the Wolf Foundation Arts Award in the Knesset in Jerusalem, the Peace prize of the Korn and Gestermann Foundation and the Peace prize of the State of Hessen, the Kulturgroschen of the German Arts Council, the International Ernst von Siemens Prize and the Goethe Medal. In 2007 he received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University and the ”Premium Imperiale” in Japan, was made Commander of the French Foreign Legion and in September 2007 Peace Ambassador of the United Nations.
In 1994, for his services to the younger generation in music, Daniel Barenboim was awarded the title of Honorary Senator of the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler Berlin.

8/2008