Philippe Entremont

Pianist Philippe Entremont launched an exceptionally durable and distinguished professional life in the early 1950s that has continued without interruption well into the opening decades of the twenty-first century. Beyond his extensive command of the keyboard literature, he has also devoted considerable energy to conducting.

Born in Reims, France, on June 7, 1934, Entremont grew up in a household where music was central: his father held the post of conductor at the Strasbourg Opera, while his mother, a pianist, provided his earliest instruction. Recognized early for his gifts, he entered the Paris Conservatory in 1944 and captured the institution’s highest honors in piano, solfège, and chamber music. He stepped onto the concert platform for the first time in Barcelona in 1951 and promptly began performing across Europe. On January 5, 1953, he introduced himself to American audiences with the National Orchestral Association under Léon Barzin. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he appeared at virtually every leading classical venue on the globe and frequently joined flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal in chamber-music settings. Early in his career he was closely identified with neoclassic composers such as Milhaud and Stravinsky as well as their forerunner Saint-Saëns; he also programmed Mozart and Beethoven regularly before expanding his scope to encompass major Romantic works. Even in advanced age he has sustained an active recital schedule, taking part in the “Piano Extravaganza of the Century” at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing among ten internationally celebrated pianists.

His conducting activities, begun in 1967, have covered an equally broad spectrum of repertoire. From 1976 to 2006 he served as principal conductor and music director of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra; between 1981 and 1986 he simultaneously directed the New Orleans Symphony. In 2007 he returned to New Orleans as soloist to inaugurate the orchestra’s second season after Hurricane Katrina. Additional podium engagements have included the Denver Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre des Concerts Colonnes in Paris, and the Munich Symphony Orchestra. He established the Santo Domingo Music Festival in the Dominican Republic.

Entremont’s discography, issued on Sony Classical and numerous smaller labels, encompasses both keyboard and orchestral recordings and has continued at only a modestly reduced pace during his eighties. In 2019 he brought out a fresh collection of Beethoven piano sonatas on the Solo Musica imprint.