András Schiff’s parents were amateur musicians, although his father died when Schiff was only five years old. As a child, he studied piano with Elizabeth Vadasz, making his public debut at the age of nine; at fourteen he went to the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest where he studied piano with Pál Kadosa and Ferenc Rados, and chamber music with György Kurtág. During his early teens he spent summers in London attending master-classes given by George Malcolm. Schiff was a prizewinner at both the International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Leeds International Competition in the mid-1970s and exposure at these events led to tours of Europe and the USSR. At his American debut he played Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor BWV 1052 and Mozart’s Piano Conc...