About Rudolf Buchbinder, pianist

Rudolf Buchbinder is firmly established as one of the most important pianists on the international scene, he is a regular guest of such renowned orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, London Philharmonic, National Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has collaborated with the world's most distinguished conductors including Abbado, Dohnányi, Dudamel, Frühbeck de Burgos, Giulini, Harnoncourt, Maazel, Masur, Mehta, Saraste, Sawallisch and Thielemann and is a regular guest at the Salzburger Festspiele and other major festivals around the world.

Rudolf 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. Rudolf Buchbinder has also recorded live 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 with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna Festwochen, the live DVD recording of which was released by EuroArts.

In November 2010 a live recording of the Brahms piano concertos with the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta was released. In May 2011 Rudolf Buchbinder’s performances of Beethoven’s five piano concertos as the soloist and conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra were recorded live at the Musikverein Vienna for a DVD production.

Throughout the 2010-2011 season he had a particularly close cooperation with the Staatskapelle Dresden as its Artist in Residence in the position of the so-called "Capell-Virtuoso," set up for the first time. His performances of the entire Beethoven Sonata Cycle on seven consecutive nights sold out at the Dresden Semperoper and the Mariinsky Hall in St. Petersburg earlier this year. The Dresden performances were recorded live and released worldwide by Sony.

Rudolf Buchbinder is the founding artistic director of the Grafenegg Music Festival, a major international music festival near Vienna which launched in August 2007.

Rudolf 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.