Nelson Freire

Born in Brazil in 1944, Nelson Freire began playing the piano when he was three years old, amazing everyone around him by replaying from memory pieces his elder sister had just performed. His teachers in Brazil were Nise Obino and Lucia Branco, who had studied with a pupil of Liszt. For his first public recital at the age of five, he chose Mozart’s Sonata in A major, K.331.

In 1957, aged 12, he won the Rio de Janeiro International Piano Competition, where the jury consisted of Marguerite Long, Guiomar Novaes and Lili Kraus. His test piece was Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5. He then left for Vienna to complete his studies with Bruno Seidlhofer, who also taught Friedrich Gulda. In 1964, Nelson Freire was awarded first prize at the Vianna da Motta International Piano Competition in Lisbon, while in London he received the Dinu Lipatti and Harriet Cohen gold medals.

Freire embarked on his international career in 1959, giving recitals and concerts in the major cities of Europe, the United States, Central and South America, Japan and Israel. Freire has worked with many of the finest conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Eugen Jochum, Lorin Maazel, Charles Dutoit, Kurt Mazur, André Previn, David Zinman, Vaclav Neumann, Valery Gergiev, Rudolf Kempe (with whom he has undertaken several tours to the USA and Germany with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Hans Graf, Hugh Wolff, John Nelson and Seiji Ozawa.

Freire has made guest appearances with prestigious orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic, the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchester, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre National de France, the Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre de Monte Carlo and the leading orchestras of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York and Philadelphia.

In Warsaw in 1999, he scored a genuine triumph with his interpretation of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s death. In December 2001, he chaired the jury for the Marguerite Long Competition in Paris.

He has recently given performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra in St. Petersburg, at the Prague Spring, with the Orchestre National de France and leading orchestras in Baltimore, Boston, Montreal, New York and Utah. He has appeared with the English Chamber Orchestra (in France and Portugal) and the Orchestre de la Radio Suisse Italienne, and given recitals in Brussels, Paris, Rome, Munich, Lisbon, Luxembourg and Zurich. In 2002/2003 he will make two concert tours under the direction of Riccardo Chailly, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. He will also appear with the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich and the NKH Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, and fulfil engagements in Brazil.

Nelson Freire has recorded for Sony/CBS, Teldec, Philips and Deutsche Grammophon. He has recently recorded Liszt’s piano concertos with the Dresden Philharmonic under Michel Plasson for Berlin Classics. His recording of 24 Chopin preludes received an Edison Award.

He has just signed an exclusive contract with Decca and the first CD produced, devoted to the works of Chopin, was greeted with unanimous critical acclaim. It received the Diapason d’Or, a "Choc" award from Monde de la Musique. It was also rated "10" by Répertoire magazine and "recommended" by Classica.