Daniel Barenboim is one of today’s most outstanding artists. As a pianist and conductor, he has been active for decades in major cities across Europe and all around the world; as the initiator of several highly acclaimed projects, he has contributed decisively to international music life.

Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires in 1942. He received his first piano lessons at age five, and was first taught by his mother. Later, he studied under his father, who would remain his only piano teacher. He gave his first public concert when he was seven. In 1952, he moved with his parents to Israel. At age eleven, Daniel Barenboim took part in conducting classes in Salzburg under Igor Markevitch. In 1955 and 1956, he studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. At age ten, Daniel Barenboim gave his international debut performance as a solo pianist in Vienna and Rome; Paris, London and New York followed. Since then, he has regularly toured Europe and the United States, but also South America, Australia, and the Far East.

Ever since his conducting debut in 1967 in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim has been in great demand with leading orchestras around the world. Between 1975 and 1989, he was chief conductor of the Orchestre de Paris. His debut as an opera conductor he gave at the Edinburgh Festival 1973. Over a period of eighteen years, from 1981 until 1999, he was active as conductor of the Bayreuth Festival.

From 1991 until 2006, Daniel Barenboim was Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1992, he became General Music Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, where he was also artistic director from 1992 to August 2002. In 2000, the Staatskapelle Berlin voted him chief-conductor-for-life. Both, in the opera as well as on the concert stage, Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin have acquired a large repertoire, especially great work cycles. Beside the great classic-romantic repertoire, Daniel Barenboim continues to focus on modern and contemporary music. From 2007 to 2014, Daniel Barenboim was active at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, from 2011 he served as music director.

In 1999, Daniel Barenboim founded together with the Palestinian literary scholar Edward Said the West-Eastern Divan Workshop, which brings together young musicians from Israel and the Arab countries to play music together. Since this time the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has developed into a celebrated ensemble with performances in many musical centres in Europe and the world. Since 2015, talented young musicians from the Middle East also study at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin, another initiative founded by Daniel Barenboim. In the fall of 2016, this university for Music and the Humanities housed in the renovated former stage depot of the State Opera started enrolling up to 90 students in a four-year bachelor program. Also housed in the same building as the academy is the Frank Gehry-designed Pierre Boulez Hall that enriches Berlin’s musical life since March 2017.

Daniel Barenboim was honoured with numerous important international prizes and has published several books.