Idil Biret's gift for music was apparent from the age of three. She was trained at the Paris Conservatoire under the tutelage of Nadia Boulanger, graduating at the age of fifteen with three first prizes. She then continued her studies with Alfred Cortot and was a lifelong disciple of Wilhelm Kempff, who considered her his finest student.Since the age of sixteen, Biret has been giving concerts throughout the world with major orchestras, such as the London Symphony, the Philharmonia, Leningrad Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Dresden Staatskapelle, French National Orchestra, Polish Radio Symphony, Suisse Romande, Tokyo Philharmonic, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Among the eminent conductors she collaborated with are Pierre Monteux, Joseph Keilberth, Hermann Scherchen, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Eric Leinsdorf, Rudolf Kempe, Adrian Boult, Malcolm Sargent, Charles Mackerras, Moshe Atzmon, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, Andrew Davis and Aaron Copland. Biret has participated at festivals in Montreal, Berlin, Paris, Nohant, Athens, Persepolis, Dubrovnik, Royan, Montpellier and Istanbul. She has performed Beethoven's violin sonatas with Yehudi Menuhin and the Mozart's concerto for two pianos with Wilhelm Kempff. She has been a member in the juries of many competitions including the Van Cliburn (USA), Queen Elisabeth (Belgium), Montreal (Canada), Busoni (Italy), Liszt (Weimar, Germany). She has received the following awards: Lily Boulanger Memorial,
Over the years Biret has made more than seventy records including the world premiere recording of Liszt's piano transcriptions of al nine Beethoven Symphonies. For Naxos, she recorded the complete solo piano works and all the concertos of Chopin, Brahms, Rachmaninov and the three piano sonatas of Pierre Boulez. In 1995 her recording of the complete works of Chopin was awarded a "Grand Prix du Disque Chopin" in Poland. The same year, her recording of the Boulez sonatas won the annual Golden Diapason award and was selected among the best recordings of the year by Le Monde in France.Biret has over one hundred concertos and all the major solo piano works in her repertory. She has given performances of the complete cycles of the piano works of Beethoven and Brahms. In the 1980s and 1990s she performed Beethoven's 32 sonatas, the 5 piano concertos and the piano transcriptions of his 9 Symphonies by Liszt (broadcast live by Radio France). In 1997, she gave performances of all the solo piano works and the two concertos of Brahms during the centennial anniversary of the composer's death.
The President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, presented Idil Biret the "Medal of Merit of the Republic of Poland" at the Polish Embassy in Ankara during a state visit on 23rd January 2007 "for her outstanding efforts in spreading the music of Chopin throughout the world with her recordings and performances of the composer's work".
For more information, please visit www.idilbiret.org, or www.idilbiret.gen.tr/
