Tzimon Barto

c. Malcolm Yawn

Recognised as one of the foremost American pianists of his generation, Tzimon Barto has been giving exciting and highly acclaimed performances on both sides of the Atlantic. Born and raised in Florida, Tzimon Barto received his first piano lessons from his grandmother at the age of five, and later attended the Juilliard School of Music, studying piano with Adele Marcus. While at Juilliard he won the Gina Bachauer Competition two consecutive years in a row. Additionally, Tzimon Barto was a conducting fellow and coach for the American Opera Center. At the Tanglewood Institute, he received the "Most Outstanding Student Award", presented by Gunther Schukker for his achievements as a young conductor.

Tzimon Barto's international breakthrough followed in the mid 1980s, when he appeared at the Vienna Musikverein and the Salzburg Festival at the invitation of Herbert von Karajan. Tzimon Barto has since performed with nearly every major international orchestra, including the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, and the Chicago, Houston, National, and San Francisco symphonies, as well as the Mariinsky Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Hamburg NDR Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, ONE Madrid, and NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo. Tzimon Barto is a frequent guest at major festivals such as the Ravinia Festival in the USA or the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. For twenty-five years, he has had a close musical collaboration and friendship with the conductor Christoph Eschenbach.

Tzimon Barto has already recorded numerous albums, many of them for EMI, and recently on the Ondine label. On his more recent recordings, he presents keyboard pieces by Rameau and piano works by Ravel. Further releases feature concertos by Ravel, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Liszt, de Falla, Saint-Saëns, Chopin, Bartók, and Gershwin, as well as solo recitals of works by Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt, as well as popular encores, with music ranging from Bach to Joplin. His latest releases for Ondine are dedicated to selected piano sonatas by Haydn as well as to Schumann. The Schumann recording features Tzimon Barto as soloist of the NDR Sinfonieorchester and as duo partner of Christoph Eschenbach (piano).

A double CD with works by Franz Schubert was released on the Capriccio label in summer 2010.

Tzimon Barto has always been actively involved in contemporary music and created an international composition competition for piano solo in 2006 –the "Barto Prize".

Tzimon Barto speaks five languages fluently, reads ancient Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and is studying Mandarin Chinese. In addition to his career as a pianist, he is also a writer. His first book "a lady of Greek origin" was published in 2001, and recently re-published by Jan Oidium Press. A stage version of this book was performed in Frankfurt and Vienna, and has been issued as a DVD by Oidium. Oidium Press will also be publishing "Harold Flanders", a novel, in the spring of 2010.

钢琴家齐蒙·巴尔托，自应赫尔伯特·冯·卡拉扬的邀请，出现在维也纳音乐者联合会大厅和萨尔兹堡音乐节以来，他的演奏一再受到广大听众强有力的欢迎和高度的赞扬。观众五次起立欢呼他和费城交响乐团的合作，演出大获成功，与芝加哥交响乐团、旧金山交响乐团和国家交响乐团、柏林爱乐乐团、伦敦爱乐乐团、法国国家交响乐团、日本广播放送学会交响乐团及其他众多乐团的合作，均获很大的成功。
　　1998年3月，巴尔托在卡内基音乐厅首演独奏会。作为年轻一代中的唯一一位受到国际性欢迎的美国钢琴家，在欧洲享有非凡的钢琴艺术生涯。在十年里，他在欧洲各大城市演出，他杰出的演奏和他的独奏、室内乐以及乐队协奏曲的曲目吸引着忠实的爱好者，使人们挤满音乐厅。巴尔托以他在音乐上的成熟、精湛的技术、无止境的色彩变化以及激动人心的魅力使他成为钢琴领域中最具有光彩照人个性的一员。