Idil Biret manifested an outstanding gift for music at the age of three and was trained at the Paris Conservatory under the tutelage of Nadia Boulanger. She studied with Alfred Cortot and was a lifelong disciple of Wilhelm Kempff who considered her as her best student. Since the age of sixteen Idil Biret has given concerts throughout the world with major orchestras including the London Symphony, the Philharmonia, BBC Orchestras, Leningrad Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Dresden Staatskapelle, Berlin Radio Symphony, French National Orchestra, Polish Radio Symphony, Orchestre Suisse Romande, Warsaw Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Among the eminent conductors she collaborated with are Pierre Monteux, Joseph Keilberth, Hermann Scherchen, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Alexander Dimitreev, Eric Leinsdorf, Rudolf Kempe, Adrian Boult, Malcolm Sargent,  Charles Mackerras, Moshe Atzmon, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Andrew Davis, Anthony Wit and Aaron Copland. Her first US concert took place on 22 November 1963 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, in the immediate aftermath of  the tragic event of President Kennedy’s death that day.    

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by Leman Biret

As the parents of a gifted child, we were always reminded to keep a journal when Idil was growing up and record not only her musical progress but even her daily prating. Unfortunately, we never did get around to do this, and now I greatly regret the lack of any sort of documentation that would help me in reconstructing those good old days. All I can do is to dig into my memories in the hope of retrieving the more outstanding of the countless fascinating and pleasant events.

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The most vivid memories of my stay in Paris are the result of my relations with two females, one sixty two years of age [Nadia Boulanger], the other eight [Idil Biret].

Aside from my musical studies, the most rewarding result of my trip to Paris has been my acquaintance with Idil Biret and her parents. Idil was eight years old last November. I had noticed her sitting among the sopranos during the first few Wednesday afternoon chorus rehearsals, and at first thought that perhaps she was the child of one of the women there who just couldn’t get a baby sitter.

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November 22, 1963

Idil Biret’s first concert in the United States took place in Boston. Following a suggestion by Nadia Boulanger, Biret received an invitation from Boston Symphony Orchestra to perform a series of concerts in November 1963 in Boston, New York and other cities.

At the time of the invitation Charles Munch was the conductor of the Boston Symphony. In 1963 he was replaced by Eric Leinsdorf who went on to conduct Biret’s concerts.

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Excerpts of an interview with W. Kempff in Istanbul
AKSAM Newspaper - 21 January 1950
(Photo below: Copy of part of the original page of the newspaper AKSAM)

“Music in Turkey is becoming quickly westernised. I heard Idil Biret in Paris. In ten years she will be an internationally renowned artist”

Wilhelm Kempff was preparing his bags to catch the Ankara train when I found him at the Park Hotel in Istanbul.

I asked him how many times he had been to Turkey altogether. Five he replied adding that his previous visits were in 1927, 1931, 1937 and 1949.

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Idil Biret read from this text for the Bayerische TV programm Prepared by Sefik Yüksel - recorded in Ammerland in 1995

It was in June 1982 during a weeklong stay of Idil Biret in Italy with Prof. Kempff in his Villa overlooking the Mediterranean from the Positano village heights that the subject of Prof. Kempff’s visits to Turkey came up. He was particularly happy that day. He had played a Schubert sonata in the late afternoon and Idil had joined him for a photograph taken near his piano.

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1979/1990
Photography:
Idil at Leipziger Gewandhaus in 1985 before the 2nd Bartok concerto under the baton of Thedore Guschlbauer
[please click photo for full size image of 1500 x 1163, 558 KB]

Idil Biret was due to make her fifth tour of the german Democratic republic in early 1990 with concerts scheduled in Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Halle and other cities when unrest started there which resulted in the fall of the Berlin wall, liberation of the peoples of Eastern Europe and reunification of Germany; a landmark period in the history of Europe.

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