Tzimon Barto

The connection between poetry and music is for Tzimon Barto of utmost importance and meaning, both as a pianist and in his writings. His musical interpretations are exceedingly personal and unconventional. They captivate audiences with zeal, exquisite sense of tonal color, subtle nuances and superb technique. A vibrant, surpassingly varied range of expressive elements from feather-light melodic lines to expressive chord series characterize his performance.

As one of the foremost American pianists, Tzimon Barto celebrated his international breakthrough in the mid-1980’s when he performed at the Wiener Musikverein and the Salzburger Festspiele at the invitation of Herbert von Karajan. Tzimon Barto has performed with almost every major international orchestra and is a regular guest at the most renowned festivals.

In 2016/17, as part of his residency with the SWR Symphony Orchestra, he played Ravel's Piano Concerto on an extremely successful tour in Spain. As part of the Présences Festival 2019 in Paris, Tzimon Barto performed with the Orchestre National de France, playing Rihm's Second Piano Concerto. This work was dedicated to him and premiered in 2014 at the Salzburg Festival together with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach before being performed in many musical metropolisis like Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Dresden, Cologne, Stockholm and Washington. In September 2025 he will play Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety in Norköpping and at Musikfest Berlin.

Tzimon Barto’s extensive discography includes albums featuring works by Haydn, Rameau, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, R. Schumann and Brahms. His latest releases are dedicated to Ives’ Concord Sonata, the Busoni version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, as well as the Paganini Variations of Liszt, Brahms, Lutoslawski and Rachmaninov. The rarely heard Piano Concerto by Hans Pfitzner in E-flat major has been released in 2013 under the Dresdner Staatskapelle label conducted by Christian Thielemann. Naïve published both books of J. S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier digitally. And in autumn 2024 Capriccio released all three of Bartók’s Piano Concertos, recorded with the Deutsche Symphonieorchester Berlin under the baton of Christoph Eschenbach.

Born and raised in Florida, Tzimon Barto received his first piano lessons from his grandmother at the age of five. He studied under the famous music-pedagogue and pianist Adele Marcus at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he won the Gina Bachauer Competition in two consecutive years.

Between 2006 and 2016 he awarded The Barto Prize, promoting contemporary piano compositions in an international competition, and integrated the winning compositions in his recital programs.

Tzimon Barto speaks five languages fluently, reads ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew and is learning Mandarin. His book A Lady of Greek Origin was published in 2001 and again in 2008 in a revised version. It was perforemd as a stage version in Frankfurt and Vienna. In 2010, his novel Harold Flanders was published.