Biography

Pianist Andreas Haefliger has led a multifaceted career, achieving broad acclaim not only as a soloist and recitalist but also as a chamber player and accompanist. Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, and Schubert figure large in his repertory, but he also plays works by contemporary composers like Sofia Gubaidulina and Thomas Adès. Haefliger has performed with such chamber ensembles as the Takács Quartet, Carmina Quartet, and Safri Duo, and has concertized and recorded with his wife, flutist Marina Piccinini. Haefliger has also collaborated with his late father, famous tenor Ernst Haefliger, and with baritone Matthias Goerne. Haefliger has performed at major music festivals and appeared as a soloist with leading orchestras from around the world. He has recorded for Sony, Avie, Decca, and other labels. Haefliger was born in Berlin in 1962 and raised in Switzerland. He showed remarkable talent in his youth and at 15 enrolled at Juilliard, where Herbert Stessin was among his teachers. While there, Haefliger was twice given the Gina Bachauer Memorial Scholarship Award. Although he was initially busy establishing his career in the U.S., Haefliger managed to debut with his Juilliard-trained violinist brother Michael at the 1985 Lucerne Festival in a program of works by Beethoven, Richard Strauss, and Ives. Andreas made his New York debut at the 92nd Street Y in 1988 in a wide-ranging program featuring music by Beethoven, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Schoenberg, Schubert, and Copland. Meanwhile, in the recording studio, he was also achieving success with efforts like his 1991 Sony release of Mozart sonatas. Haefliger debuted at London's Wigmore Hall in 1993 and at the Proms as a soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1994. That same year, he appeared in a program of Beethoven and Schumann works at the Rheingau Musik Festival in Germany. In 1998, Haefliger accompanied Goerne in acclaimed performances of Schubert lieder at Alice Tully Hall in New York. That same season, Haefliger debuted at Carnegie Hall. During the 2000 Lincoln Center Festival, he appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Hans Vonk in an acclaimed performance of Messiaen's challenging Turangalîla-symphonie. In 2004, Haefliger launched his ambitious recording project Perspectives, a series that began on the Avie label devoted to the complete solo piano music of Beethoven, with the inclusion of works by various other composers. The initial release offered the Beethoven Sonata No. 32 and works by Mozart, Schubert, and Adès. Haefliger continued to score numerous successes in the concert hall as well, as evidenced by his 2007 appearance in Cardiff with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Thierry Fischer with an acclaimed performance of the Beethoven Third Concerto, and his 2011 performance of the Bartók Third Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Jonathan Nott. In 2017, Haefliger signed an exclusive contract with the BIS label, issuing the seventh volume of his Perspectives series in 2018. In 2020, he joined the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Susanna Mälkki in a recording of piano concertos by Ammann, Ravel, Bartók.