"Unlike many virtuosos, Haefliger is a musician first and pianist second... Andreas Haefliger is a pianist to watch. More importantly, he is a pianist to listen to." Chicago Tribune
Andreas Haefliger was born into a distinguished musical family and grew up in Switzerland, going on to study at the Juilliard School in New York. With his formidable technique and musicality, and his innate sense of architecture and phrasing, he was quickly recognised as a pianist of the first rank. Engagements with major US orchestras followed swiftly – the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Pittsburgh, Chicago and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestras among them. In his native Europe too, Haefliger was invited to the great orchestras and festivals – such as the Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Deutsche Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra and Vienna Symphony. He also established himself as a superb recitalist, making his New York debut in 1988, and became frequent performer at premier recital venues and festivals around the world, notably the Lucerne and Salzburg Festivals, the BBC Proms and the Wiener Festwochen.
As a recitalist and chamber musician, Haefliger excels in finding the most immediate expression. He was described in the Guardian after a recent recital at the Wigmore Hall as “…one to take risks, which make him a fascinating artist”, and in an earlier review in the Independent, “there seems to be no limit to the resources of Haefliger’s touch”. Haefliger has performed a series of recitals in New York, London and Milan, with his late father, the great tenor Ernst Haefliger, in Schubert's Die Winterreise, and in recent years has collaborated with Matthias Goerne, Wolfgang Holzmair, the Takacs Quartet, and his wife, flautist Marina Piccinini.
Highlights of 2008 and 2009 include appearances with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Christoph von Dohnyani at the Royal Festival Hall in London playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3, a work which he also performs at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with the Netherlands Radio Kammer Filharmonie. He also appears with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Aspen Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St Luke’s, Malaysian Philharmonic and Singapore Symphony. During the 2008/09 season Haefliger also peforms in recital with Matthias Goerne in Brahms’ Die Schoene Magelone with concerts in Cologne, Berlin and Barcelona.
The focus of Haefliger’s solo recital appearances in recent years has been an ongoing series Perspectives on Beethoven in which he performs the complete piano works of Beethoven alongside the music of related composers including Mozart, Bartók, Brahms, Janácek, Schoenberg and Ligeti. The recitals are being recorded for the Avie label, and recent and forthcoming performances include at the Lucerne Piano Festival, the Wigmore Hall London, in Lisbon, Birmingham and Antwerp.
After the enormous success of his first recording of Mozart Sonatas for Sony Classical, Haefliger made three further recordings for Sony of Schumann’s Davidsbündlertanze and Fantasiestücke, Schubert Impromptus, and a disc of music by the distinguished contemporary Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. Later Haefliger recorded for Decca with the Takacs Quartet and Matthias Goerne, the latest Goerne/Haefliger release of Schubert’s Goethe Lieder being awarded a Preis Der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Haefliger has most recently released a series of recital discs on the Avie label, all of which have attracted widespread critical acclaim, including a collection of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas, shortly followed by Perspectives 1, Perspectives 2 and most recently Perspectives 3, featuring works by Beethoven and Schubert.
Andreas Haefliger is represented by Intermusica.
October 2008 / 569 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.