Brigitte Engerer was a French pianist and pedagogue, born on 27 October 1952 in Tunis and died on 23 June 2012 in Paris. She began studying music at the age of five and entered the Paris Conservatory, where she studied piano with Lucette Descaves. In 1968, at the age of fifteen, she received the first prize in piano by unanimous decision of the jury.
In 1969, Engerer became a prizewinner of the Marguerite Long–Jacques Thibaud International Competition and received an invitation for further study at the Moscow Conservatory in the class of Stanislav Neuhaus. She studied there for nine years. During her career she gave solo concerts, taught at the Paris Conservatory, and served on juries of international competitions.
A turning point in her career came in 1980, when Herbert von Karajan invited her to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and later to take part in the celebration of the orchestra's 100th anniversary in 1982. She was subsequently invited by Daniel Barenboim to tour with the Orchestre de Paris and by Zubin Mehta to perform at Lincoln Center in New York. Among her chamber and concert partners were David Geringas, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Elena Bashkirova, Henri Demarquette, Boris Berezovsky, Alexander Kniazev, and Oleg Maisenberg.
Engerer won 6th prize at the Long-Thibaud Competition in Paris in 1969, 6th prize at the 5th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1974, and 3rd prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 1978. She was also a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, a Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite, a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, a corresponding member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France, and received an honorary Victoires de la musique prize for services to music in 2011.
Her discography included recordings of Rachmaninov's suites for two pianos with Boris Berezovsky, piano works by Camille Saint-Saëns, Chopin's Nocturnes, works by Robert and Clara Schumann, Mussorgsky's piano music, and collaborative recordings of Brahms, Grieg, Debussy, Ravel, Duparc, Massenet, and others. Engerer was also the main prototype for the character Maria in Sophie Laloy's film I Will Devour You, released in France in 2009, and she performed excerpts of classical works used in the film.
Brigitte Engerer died of cancer in Paris in 2012.
Connections
This figure has 1 connection in the Music Lineage catalog.