Daniel Barenboim, born in Buenos Aires in 1942, started piano lessons at the age of five and gave his first official concert in his home town in 1950. His family moved to Israel in 1952. During the next years, he made his debut in Vienna, Rome, Paris, London and finally in New York (1957 with Leopold Stokowski). In 1954 he took part in Igor Markevitch’s conducting classes in Salzburg, played for Wilhelm Furtwängler, who described him as ‘a phenomenon’ and studied composition and harmonics with Nadia Boulanger in Paris at age 13.
In the Sixties, Mr. Barenboim began devoting more time to conducting. His close relationship with the English Chamber Orchestra, kindled in 1965, lasted over a decade, with whom he performed frequently in England both as conductor and pianist, and made tours all over Europe, the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Following his début as a conductor with the New Philharmonia Orchestra in London in 1967, he 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 Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Edinburgh International Festival and his Bayreuth debut in 1981. In 1991 he succeeded Sir Georg Solti as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with whom he enjoyed countless successes in all the world's great concert halls for fifteen years. At the conclusion of his tenure in June 2006, the CSO musicians adopted a resolution naming him "our honorary conductor for life." In 1992 he became General Music Director of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin. In the autumn of 2000, the Staatskapelle Berlin appointed him Chief Conductor for Life.
Mr. Barenboim has always been active as a chamber musician performing with, among others, his late wife, cellist Jacqueline du Pré, as well as with Gregor Piatigorsky, Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman. He has also accompanied Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Quasthoff, Rolando Villazón, Dorothea Röschmann, among others, in recital.
In 1999 Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said, a Palestinian intellectual who died in 2003, founded the West-Eastern Divan Workshop, which each summer invites young musicians from Israel and the Middle East to form an orchestra. In 2003 the orchestra played for the first time in an Arab country in the city of Rabat, at King Muhammed VI’s invitation. The workshop´s aim is to set an example of the dialogue of cultures. Both Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said have received a number of awards in recognition of their endeavour towards peace.
Maestro Barenboim is recipient of many awards, several of them for his commitment for peace alongside Edward Said and the Divan Orchestra. To cite the most important: Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz, Music Prize of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation (2002), Grammy for Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser’ (2003), Echo Klassik´s Special Ambassador of Music Prize (2005), Goethe Medal by the Goethe Institute, Hessischer Friedenspreis, Honorary Doctorate of Music at Oxford University, Commandeur de la Légion d’honneur (France), UN Ambassador for Peace, Praemium Imperiale (Japan), Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal (2007). In May 2008 he became honorary citizen of the city of Buenos Aires (ciudadano ilustre).
With the opening of the season 2007/2008 Daniel Barenboim began a close relationship with the Teatro alla Scala as "Maestro Scaligero" conducting opera and concert performances and playing chamber music concerts.
Daniel Barenboim has published a number of books: the autobiography A Life in Music, and Parallels and Paradoxes, which he wrote together with Edward Said. In the summer of 2008, his new book Everything is connected was published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson.
More information can be found at www.danielbarenboim.com.