he French pianist, *Hélène Grimaud*, studied with Jacqueline Courtin at the conservatory there and subsequently in Marseille with Pierre Barbizet. At the age of 13 she was accepted by the Paris Conservatory where she won the first prize in piano in 1985. In July, immediately after graduating, she recorded Sergei Rachmaninov’s Sonata No. 2 and the complete Etudes-Tableaux Op. 33 (Grand Prix du disque, 1986). She studied additionally with György Sándor and Leon Fleisher. The year 1987 marked a decisive turning point in her career with appearances at MIDEM in Cannes and at the piano festival La Roque d’Anthéron, her first recital in Tokyo and Daniel Barenboim’s invitation to perform with the Orchestre de Paris. Hélène Grimaud has since performed with many of the world’s major orchestras and renowned conductors.
In 1988, Hélène Grimaud first performed for the pianist Dmitri Bashkirov, who became an important influence on her playing. Appearance at the Lockenhaus Festival at the invitation of Gidon Kremer, with whom she performed – Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich become further important influences in her career. In 1990, she made her debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, followed by appearances with leading orchestras in the USA and Europe. Settles in the USA. New York recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum; European debut with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic under Temirkanov (S. Rachmaninov, Piano Concerto No. 2) at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
In 1993, Hélène Grimaud made tours Germany with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Neeme Järvi. In 1995 she made ger debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Claudio Abbado performing S. Rachmaninov’s Concerto No. 2. In 1996 she made a highly successful tour of Spain with Jeffrey Tate and the English Chamber Orchestra. She performed with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra led by Claudio Abbado at the Lucerne and Pesaro Festivals. In 1997 she performed and records Johannes Brahms’s Concerto No. 1 with Kurt Sanderling and the Staatskapelle Berlin (Cannes Classical Recording of the Year, 1999). In 1999 she made her New York Philharmonic Orchestra debut with L.v. Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 under Kurt Masur. Grimaud and the photographer J Henry Fair established the Wolf Conservation Center, a private, non-profit-making educational facility in South Salem (Westchester County, NY), to promote conservation of this threatened species. In 200 she made her debuts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Tour of the Czech Republic; in autumn she was the soloist (along with Martha Argerich) in a European festival tour made by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. She performed L.v. Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 with the Berliner Philharmoniker and David Zinman, and gave a solo recital in the Berlin Philharmonie which was filmed for TV broadcast.
