Ronald Brautigam

Ronald Brautigam has deservedly earned a reputation as one of Holland’s most respected musicians, remarkable not only for his virtuosity and musicality but also for the eclectic nature of his musical interests. He has received numerous awards including the Dutch Music Prize and a 2010 MIDEM Classical Award for best concerto recording for his CD of Beethoven Piano Concertos with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Parrott. 

A student of the legendary Rudolf Serkin,Ronald Brautigam performs regularly with leading orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw, London Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Budapest Festival Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Rundfunk- Sinfonieorchester Berlin. 
He has performed alongside a number of distinguished conductors including Riccardo Chailly, Charles Dutoit, Bernard Haitink, Frans Brüggen, Christopher Hogwood, Marek Janowski, Sir Roger Norrington, Marin Alsop, Ivor Bolton, Sir Simon Rattle, Ivan Fisher and Sir Mark Elder. 
Besides his performances on modern instruments Ronald Brautigam has established himself as a leading exponent of the fortepiano, working with orchestras such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Tafelmusik, 18th-Century Orchestra, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Hanover band, the Wiener Akademie, Concerto Copenhagen and l’Orchestre des Champs-Elysées.

In 1995 Ronald Brautigam began what has proved a highly successful association with the Swedish label BIS. His discography of over 60 recordings so far includes the complete works of Mozart and Haydn on fortepiano. In 2004 he released the first of his 15-CD Beethoven cycle on fortepiano. After the first six volumes the series had already become firmly established as the benchmark cycle on fortepiano. According to US magazine Fanfare ‘this could be a Beethoven piano-sonata cycle that challenges the very notion of playing this music on modern instruments, a stylistic paradigm shift.’ 

In 2009 he began what has proved a highly successful association with the Kölner Akademie and conductor Michael Alexander Willens, resulting in a series of 11 CD’s with Mozart’s complete piano concertos on fortepiano.

Besides his work for BIS, Ronald Brautigam has recorded piano concertos by Shostakovich, Hindemith and Frank Martin with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly for Decca, and has made several recordings with violinist Isabelle van Keulen.

Brautigam’s recordings have earned a number of awards including three Edisons, a Diapason d’Or de l’année, a ‘MIDEM Classical Award’ for best solo piano recording (2004) and in 2010 he won the prestigious MIDEM Classical Award for best concerto recording. 

In 2015 his Beethoven recordings won him an Edison Award and the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Ronald Brautigam is Professor at the Musik-Hochschule in Basel.