Philippe Bianconi, France, 1st Prize, 1981

Born in Nice in 1960, Philippe Bianconi studied with the Nice Academy with Mrs Delbert-February, and later in Paris and Freiburg under Gaby Casadesus and Vitalij Margulis.

He won the first prize in the International Youth competition in Belgrade (1977), and the silver Medal in the seventh Van Cliburn International Competition in 1985.

Mr. Bianconi has performed in New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia and with the orchestras of Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Minnesota, Dallas, and Saint-Louis.

In Europe he has performed in London, Milan, Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, Paris under such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Jeffrey Tate, Kurt Masur, Edo de Waart, David Zinman, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Lucas Foster, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, and Semyon Bychkov.

With his passion for chamber music, he has played with J.P. Rampal, P. Amoyal, and the Tokyo String Quartet and since 1983 he has been a distinguished partner of Hermann Prey with whom he has recorded the three Schubert lieder cycles (Denon Records). He has also recorded performances of Ravel, and Schumann (Lyrinx).