He is an orchestral conductor and pianist born in Buenos Aires, Argentina
and who holds Spanish, Argentinian and Israeli citizenship.He was taught the piano by his
mother when he was five and, after he was older his father took over and was
his only teacher.His first
concert was given in Buenos Aires
when he was seven and when he was twelve the family moved to Israel.He attended conducted classes in Salzburg
and met and performed for Wilhelm Furtwangler and he also studied composition
and harmony in Paris with Nadia
Boulanger.He gave concerts
throughout world as a pianist in the 1950s and made his first recording in
1954.He
debuted as a conductor in 1967 with the Philharmonia
Orchestra
in London
and following that was invited to be the conductor of many of the world's
symphony orchestras.He has been the Music Director of
the Orchestre
de Paris, the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra
and the Berlin State Opera, and in 2006 was Principal Guest
Conductor of La Scala, Milan.In music education he has been the
Charles Eliot Norton Lecturer at HarvardUniversity and the 2006 BBC Reith lecturer, where he gave a series of lectures from
various places in the world.His awards include the Wolf Prize awarded to him at the Israeli
Knesset, the Wilhelm Furtwangler Prize, the Prince of Asturias Concord
Prize, and Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
and seven Grammy Awards.
