ANDRÁS SCHIFF is world-renowned and critically acclaimed as a pianist, conductor, pedagogue, and lecturer. Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1953 Schiff started piano lessons at age five with Elisabeth Vadász. He continued musical studies at the Ferenc Liszt Academy with Professor Pál Kadosa, György Kurtág, and Ferenc Rados, and in London with George Malcolm.

Indisputably one of the most prominent proponents of the keyboard works of J.S. Bach, Schiff has long proclaimed that Bach stands at the core of his music making. In October 2012, April 2013, and October 2013, András Schiff will embark on The Bach Project in North America, comprising six Bach recitals and an orchestral week of Bach, Schumann, and Mendelssohn with Schiff at the piano and on the podium. The complete Project will visit Symphony Hall supported by the San Francisco Symphony, Walt Disney Concert Hall supported by the LA Phil and New York City in partnership between the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, 92Y, and Great Performers at Lincoln Center. Individual recitals will be presented in Vancouver, Seattle, Washington DC, Chicago, Santa Barbara, Chapel Hill, Ann Arbor, Boston. and Toronto. His recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier for ECM, releasing September 2012, is expected to be one of the preeminent performances of the work.

Schiff has established a prolific discography, and, since 1997 has been an exclusive artist for ECM New Series and its producer, Manfred Eicher. Recordings for ECM include the complete Beethoven Sonatas on eight discs, Janácˇek, two solo discs of Schumann, and his second recordings of the Bach Partitas and Goldberg Variations. He is recording Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations for release in 2013. 

András Schiff has worked with most of the major international orchestras and conductors, but now performs mainly as conductor and soloist. In 1999 he created the Cappella Andrea Barca, which consists of international soloists, chamber musicians, and friends. He also works every year with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

Since childhood he has enjoyed playing chamber music and from 1989 until 1998 was Artistic Director of the internationally praised Musiktage Mondsee chamber music festival near Salzburg. In 1995, with Heinz Holliger, he founded the Ittinger Pfingstkonzerte in Kartause Ittingen, Switzerland. In 1998 Schiff started a similar series entitled Hommage to Palladio at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. From 2004 to 2007 he was Artist in Residence of the Kunstfest Weimar. In the 2007/08 season he was Pianist in Residence of the Berlin Philharmonic.

András Schiff has been awarded numerous international prizes and his relationship with publisher G. Henle continues with a joint edition of Mozart’s Piano Concertos and both volumes of The Well-Tempered Clavier.

In Spring 2011, Schiff attracted attention because of his opposition to the latest Hungarian media law, and in view of the ensuing attacks on him from some Hungarian Nationalists, has made the decision not to perform in or return to his home country.

András Schiff has been made an Honorary Professor by music schools in Budapest, Detmold, and Munich, and a Special Supernumerary Fellow of Balliol College (Oxford, UK).

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