Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim, born in 1942, Israeli conductor and pianist, noted for his versatility as a musician. Barenboim achieved success as a soloist, chamber musician, accompanist, and symphony conductor.

Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received piano instruction from his parents, who were both piano teachers. He gave his first public concert at age seven, in Buenos Aires. In 1951 Barenboim’s family moved to Salzburg, Austria, where he performed at that city’s conservatory of music, the Mozarteum. In 1952 his family moved to Israel, and over the following three years, Barenboim traveled to Austria, France, and Italy to study piano, music theory, and conducting.

Starting in the late 1950s, Barenboim performed internationally as a pianist. He became known for his performances of the concertos of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven and Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In 1962 he added conducting to his activities. Barenboim served as music director of the Orchestre de Paris in France from 1975 to 1989. In 1991 he became music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) in Illinois. The following year he took on an additional assignment as artistic director of the Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin, Germany, and music director of the Staatskapelle, the Staatsoper orchestra. In 2000 the Staatskapelle appointed him chief conductor for life. In 2006, when he stepped down from the CSO post, the musicians named him honorary conductor for life. That year he also became principal guest conductor at La Scala opera house in Milan.

Barenboim is highly regarded as an interpreter of music from both the 18th-century classical and the 19th-century romantic periods. In addition to the music of Mozart and Beethoven, his piano repertoire includes works by German composer Johannes Brahms and Polish composer Frédéric Chopin. Barenboim has conducted the music of German composers Johannes Sebastian Bach and Richard Wagner, Austrian composer Anton Bruckner, Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and English composer Sir Edward Elgar. His collaborations have ranged from piano accompaniment for singers of German lieder (art songs) to chamber concerts with musicians such as Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman and English cellist Jacqueline du Pré, whom Barenboim married in 1967. In 1992 Barenboim published an account of his life, titled Daniel Barenboim: A Life in Music. An updated edition was published in 2003.

Although not openly political, Barenboim has made efforts through his music to reduce tensions in the Middle East. In 1999 he played his first concert for an Arab audience on the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and in 2002 he conducted a master class on the West Bank for Palestinian students. Along with Palestinian writer and educator Edward Said, Barenboim organized a summer workshop to bring together young Arab and Israeli musicians. Under his direction they make music as the West-East Divan Chamber Orchestra. A series of conversations between Barenboim and Said about music, culture, and national identity appeared in book form as Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society (2002).