András Schiff
András Schiff was born in Budapest and started taking piano lessons at the age of five with
Elisabeth Vadász. He continued musical studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music with
professors Pál Kadosa, György Kurtág, and Ferenc Rados, and in London with George Malcolm.
Recitals and special cycles (including the major keyboard works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, and Bartók) form an important part of his
activities. Between 2004 and 2009, he performed complete cycles of the Beethoven's 32 piano
sonatas in 20 cities throughout the United States and Europe, a project recorded live in
the Tonhalle Zürich and released in eight volumes for ECM New Series.
This season, Mr. Schiff was named a Perspectives artist by Carnegie Hall,
where he performs in a series of concerts that focus on Bartók and the legacy the composer
left on their native Hungary. Unique to this series are the many colleagues who join Mr.
Schiff during the 12 concerts included in his Perspectives-most of whom he has
known since childhood. Additional North American performances take place in Philadelphia,
Princeton, Vancouver, Toronto, Berkeley, Boulder, Napa, and Washington, DC.
In 1999, Mr. Schiff created his own chamber orchestra, Cappella Andrea Barca, which
consists of international soloists, chamber musicians, and close friends. He also works
every year with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
From 1989 until 1998, he was artistic director of Musiktage Mondsee, a chamber music
festival near Salzburg, and in 1995, he founded the Ittinger Pfingstkonzerte with Heinz
Holliger in Kartause Ittingen, Switzerland. In 1998, Mr. Schiff started a similar series,
entitled Homage to Palladio at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. From 2004 to 2007, he was
artist-in-residence of the Kunstfest Weimar, and in 2007-2008 was pianist-in-residence of
the Berliner Philharmoniker.
Mr. Schiff has established a prolific discography, including recordings for London/Decca
(1981-1994), Teldec (1994-1997), and since 1997, ECM New Series. He has received several
international recording awards, including two Grammys.
Mr. Schiff has been awarded numerous prizes, including Zwickau's Robert Schumann Prize,
Italy's Premio della critica musicale Franco Abbiati, the Klavier-Festival Ruhr Prize, the
Wigmore Medal, and the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize; in 2006, he was named an Honorary
Member of the Beethoven House in Bonn. Also in 2006, Mr. Schiff and the music publisher G.
Henle Verlag began collaborating on Mozart and Bach editions. To date, both volumes of
Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier were edited in the Henle original text with
fingerings by Mr. Schiff.
Mr. Schiff has been made an honorary professor by the conservatories in Budapest, Detmold,
and Munich, and a special supernumerary fellow of Balliol College in Oxford. He is married
to violinist Yuuko Shiokawa.