For almost eight decades, Daniel Barenboim has influenced the music world like few other artists. As a musician, mentor, and cultural pioneer, he has connected people, set ideas in motion, and helped make the vision of cultural and human dialogue a reality. Not least, the Pierre Boulez Saal and the Barenboim-Said Akademie owe their existence to his tireless commitment.
On the occasion of his 80th birthday, we join music lovers around the world in celebrating an extraordinary career—happy birthday, Maestro!
Daniel Barenboim gave his first public concert more than 70 years ago—his has truly been A Life in Music, as his 2013 autobiography is titled. Initially celebrated as a piano prodigy and later as a conductor, his path has led him to the greatest stages and to the most important orchestras in the world.
The Pierre Boulez Saal became his most recent artistic home, a unique space where leading musicians perform at his invitation, and where he himself has been heard as a soloist, as a chamber musician opposite many longtime artistic friends, and as a conductor of the Boulez Ensemble.
Passing on decades of experience to the next generations of artists has long been an essential part of Daniel Barenboim’s work. Teaching technical skills is only one part of it: it is always the person and the musician that are at the center, with the aim to develop and embrace an open artistic consciousness.
This spirit also inspires the work of the Barenboim-Said Akademie, where musical training and academic education in the humanities go hand in hand. Recently, Maestro Barenboim worked with young pianists on Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas—works he has been studying and performing since childhood.
To make music, you have to listen. You have to listen to what the other one is doing, but you also have to listen to what you are doing and how it affects the other—this is the best school of human relations. Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim’s encounter with the Palestinian-American literary scholar Edward W. Said led to the founding of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 1999. The idea of bringing together young musicians from different countries of the Middle East and Northern Africa ultimately inspired the creation of the Barenboim-Said Akademie and the Pierre Boulez Saal. From the first orchestral workshops in Weimar to the historic concert of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Ramallah in 2005, to the unveiling of Frank Gehry’s design for the Pierre Boulez Saal and the hall’s opening in 2017, Maestro Barenboim was the driving artistic force.