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Pianist
Oliver Schnyder has a long résumé, performing with many of the world's top orchestras and conductors. He is also an avid chamber music performer and, back home in Switzerland, has been involved with innovative concert programming.
Schnyder was born in Brugg, in northern Switzerland, on October 3, 1973. He took up the piano early, earning 1994 diplomas in both teaching and performance from the Swiss Music Pedagogy Association. He went on to master classes with
Homero Francesch at the Zurich University of the Arts, settling on a performing career and earning a degree there in 1998.
Schnyder then moved to the U.S. for further studies with
Ruth Laredo in New York in 1998, and
Leon Fleisher in Baltimore from 1998 to 2001. By that time he had begun to make an impact, winning the Pembaur Competition in Bonn in 1999 and making an imposing debut recital at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington the following year. He returned to Switzerland to make his debut appearance as a concerto soloist, with the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra under
David Zinman in 2002. Since then, almost without interruption,
Schnyder has been a worldwide star. He has toured the Americas, Europe, and the Far East repeatedly, playing in most of the world's top venues including the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. Orchestras with which he has appeared include the
Philharmonia Orchestra, the
Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (repeatedly, on a tour with violinist
Julia Fischer), and the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Schnyder has also been a fixture at Central European music festivals, including the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Lucerne Festival, and the Lugano Festival, in many cases being invited back for repeat appearances. In 2012, he founded the
Schnyder Trio (also known as the Oliver Schynder Trio) with violinist
Andreas Janke and cellist Benjamin Nyffenegger. He has played duo repertory with such major figures as
Fischer, violinist
Veronika Eberle, and cellist
Sol Gabetta.
In his home Swiss canton of Aargau, he has founded two music enterprises. The Piano District aims to mount classical piano concerts in disused industrial spaces, while Piano Legends was a new all-star concert series.
Schnyder has recorded for Avie, RCA, and Sony Classical among other labels. In 2017, he released The Beethoven Project, a complete set of
Beethoven's concertos with the
Luzern Symphony Orchestra. The following year he backed tenor
Daniel Behle, a frequent performing partner, on a holiday release titled
Meine schönsten Weihnachtslieder.