Bernard Ringeissen

Bernard Ringeissen (born 15 May 1934)[1] is a French classical pianist.

He was born in Paris in 1934. His first teacher, at age 7, was Georges de Lausnay.[1] He entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in 1947, aged 12, and won the Premier Prix when he was sixteen.[2] He had further study with Marguerite Long and Jacques Février.[1] In 1953, he temporarily retired from public performance, to focus on music competition.

In 1954, he won equal 2nd Prize with Sergio Scopelliti at the Alfredo Casella Competition in Naples.[1] He also won the International Music Performance Competition in Geneva that year. In 1955, he won 4th prize at the V International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw; then equal 2nd Prize with Dimitri Bashkirov at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Competition (no 1st Prize was awarded that year).[1] In 1962, he won 1st Prize at the Rio de Janeiro International Competition and the Villa-Lobos Special Prize for his interpretation of Brazilian music.[1][2]

He has performed widely and served on competition juries in many countries. He teaches in Rueil-Malmaison, and gives master-classes at the Salzburg Mozarteum and at the International Summer Seminar in Weimar.[1]

His recordings include the complete piano works of Camille Saint-Saëns and of Igor Stravinsky,[2] and many works by Charles-Valentin Alkan, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy (with Noël Lee),[3] and the Russian masters.[1] He has also recorded Poulenc's Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra, with Gabriel Tacchino and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra under Georges Prêtre.[4]