Pianist Rudolf Buchbinder has been called "the Viennese oracle on the core literature of Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms" by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Firmly established as one of the most important pianists on the international scene, Mr. Buchbinder is a regular guest of such renowned orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, London Philharmonic, National Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has collaborated with the world's most distinguished conductors including Abbado, Dohnányi, Frühbeck de Burgos, Giulini, Harnoncourt, Maazel, Macal, Masur, Mehta, Saraste and Sawallisch, and is a regular guest at the Salzburger Festspiele and other major festivals around the world.
Of his appearance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, the Orange County Register raved, "You could hear the weight of his fingers, it seemed, falling onto the keyboard, each note given a nudged distinction. By avoiding both grandiloquent overstatement and dry objectivity, he plumbed the core of the noble simplicity in this music."
Mr. Buchbinder has over 100 recordings to his credit, including the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas, the complete Beethoven concertos, the complete Mozart piano concertos, all of Haydn's works for piano, both Brahms concertos, and all of the rarely-performed Diabelli Variations collection written by 50 Austrian composers. The 18-disc set of Haydn's works earned him the Grand Prix du Disque. His cycle of all of Mozart's piano concertos with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, recorded live at the Vienna Konzerthaus, was chosen by Joachim Kaiser as CD of the Year. Mr. Buchbinder's latest CDs are live recordings the Brahms piano concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and all five Beethoven piano concertos with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra as soloist and conductor. In 2006, in celebration of his 60th birthday, he performed twelve Mozart piano concertos over two days with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna Festwochen, the live DVD recording of which was released by EuroArts.
Rudolf Buchbinder is the founding artistic director of the Grafenegg Music Festival, a major international music festival near Vienna which launched in August 2007. His recent performance highlights include the Jubilee Concert for the 50th Anniversary of the Großer Musikvereinssaal in Vienna (where Mr. Buchbinder made his debut at age 11 in 1958); a performance with the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala at Teatro alla Scala; Beethoven Sonata cycles in Warsaw, Berkeley, and at the Vienna Musikverein; performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin; performances of all five of Beethoven's Piano Concertos over three days, with the Dresden Philharmonic; and return engagements with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. During the 2010-11 season, Mr. Buchbinder will tour the U.S. with the Dresden Staatskapelle, performing in cities including San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. He will also perform in New York at Carnegie Hall with the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Mr. Buchbinder attaches considerable importance to the meticulous study of musical sources. He owns more than 18 complete editions of Beethoven's sonatas and has an extensive collection of autograph scores, first editions, and original documents. In addition, he possesses the autograph scores and piano parts of both Brahms concertos as copies. He was admitted to the Vienna Musik Hochschule, at age five, and remains the youngest student to gain entrance in the school's history.
Mr. Buchbinder lives in Vienna and is managed in North America by Tanja Dorn at IMG Artists.
For further information, please visit www.buchbinder.net.
