Ingrid Fliter

Pianist Ingrid Fliter is best known for her incisive interpretations of the works of Chopin and Beethoven. She was little known until 2006, when she won the prestigious Gilmore Award and emerged as one of the more prominent pianists on the international scene, with a major recording contract and a busy schedule of concerts and recitals at major venues across the globe. Her repertoire also includes works by Mozart, Debussy, and Bartók, among many others. Fliter has recorded for EMI, VAI, and Linn Records. Ingrid Fliter (pronounced FLEE-ter) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 23, 1973. She studied piano with Elizabeth Westerkamp and, although she first performed publicly at age 11, she made her official debut with an orchestra at 16, playing Beethoven's Third Concerto at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Fliter performed for Martha Argerich later on, and Argerich advised her to continue her studies in Europe and allowed the 18-year-old to use her home in Geneva, Switzerland. Fliter then studied at the Freiburg Musikhochschule, where her teachers included Vitaly Margulis. Studies in Rome with Carlo Bruno followed, and then in 1995, Fliter relocated to Imola, Italy, where she studied with Boris Petrushansky and Franco Scala at the International Piano Academy Incontri col Maestro. Fliter captured fourth prize at the 1998 Busoni International Competition in Bolzano, Italy. She went on to win the silver medal in 2000 at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. While this was a second-place result, it yielded career benefits far beyond most first-prize finishes. In January and February 2002, Fliter toured the U.S. with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under Kazimierz Kord and subsequently appeared at major venues across the globe. In 2006, Fliter was the recipient of the Gilmore Award. Selected from among 450 or so pianists who are secretly observed on tour by the Gilmore judges, she enjoyed a meteoric rise. VAI Audio released three albums that same year, including a collection of Chopin works derived from a live recital in 2003 at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. In 2007, EMI signed her to a contract and BBC Radio chose her to serve for two years as a New Generation Artist, affording concert appearances at major festivals and concert halls throughout the U.K. After a successful Chopin album in 2008 (Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 3; Ballade No. 4; Barcarolle; Mazurkas; Impromptu; Waltzes), EMI issued Fliter's highly acclaimed set of Chopin's complete waltzes in 2009. Fliter dazzled audiences and critics in Perth with her debut Australian tour in June 2011 with recitals of works by Beethoven and Chopin, and in performances of Mozart's Concerto No. 23 (K. 488) with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Verbitsky. That year, she released Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 8, 17, 23 on EMI. Fliter then moved to Linn Records, which in 2014 released both the solo Chopin: Preludes and, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jun Märkl, Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concertos. With the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Antonio Méndez, she issued the recordings Schumann: Piano Concerto; Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 and Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 on Linn in 2016. Resuming her exploration of the works of Chopin, Frédéric Chopin: Nocturnes followed on the label in 2018. After concert seasons around the world were derailed by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fliter eventually resumed a busy international touring schedule, and in 2025, her first of two volumes of Chopin Mazurkas appeared on Linn Records. ~ Robert Cummings & Marcy Donelson, Rovi