Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim is an Argentine-Israeli pianist and conductor who also holds Spanish and Palestinian citizenship. Born in Buenos Aires on 15 November 1942, he made his debut at the age of seven in Beethoven sonatas and soon became known as a solo and concerto pianist.
He studied at the Mozarteum University Salzburg and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana. His teachers included Nadia Boulanger, Claudio Arrau, Igor Markevitch and Edwin Fischer.
Barenboim became conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra in 1966 and of the Orchestre de Paris in 1975. From 1986 to 1989 he served as artistic and musical director of the new Opéra Bastille in Paris. In 1991 he became conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position he held until 2006, and in 1992 he became artistic director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin.
As both pianist and conductor, Barenboim has worked extensively with the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Romantic composers, as well as that of the contemporary composer John Corigliano. In 1999 he founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with the American-Palestinian writer Edward Said; the ensemble includes young Arab and Israeli musicians.
He received the Wolf Prize for Music in 2004, the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2006 and the Edison Music Awards lifetime achievement prize for classical music in 2011. He conducted the Vienna New Year's Concert in 2014 and 2022. In early 2023, citing health reasons, he stepped down from the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, where he had been associated since 1992.
In 1967, Barenboim married the British cellist Jacqueline du Pré in Jerusalem. They frequently performed together and played chamber music with Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman and Zubin Mehta. Du Pré, who had multiple sclerosis from the 1970s, died in 1987 at the age of 42; their relationship and her illness were portrayed in the film Hilary and Jackie. In 1988, Barenboim married the Russian pianist Elena Bashkirova, with whom he already had two sons.