Michel Béroff was born in Épinal in 1950. After studying at the Conservatory of Nancy, he won a First Prize in piano at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSM) in 1966 in the class of Pierre Sancan. The following year, he was awarded First Prize at the first International Olivier Messiaen Competition and has since been regarded as one of the most important interpreters of this composer.
Michel Béroff’s career has taken him all over the world, performing with the most prestigious orchestras under the direction of conductors such as Abbado, Barenboim, Bernstein, Boulez, Dohnányi, Doráti, Dutoit, Eschenbach, Gielen, Inbal, Jochum, Leinsdorf, Masur, Ozawa, Previn, Rostropovich, Sinopoli, Solti, Tennstedt, Tilson Thomas and Zinman.
As a chamber musician, he has collaborated closely with Martha Argerich, Barbara Hendricks, Jean-Philippe Collard, Lynn Harrell, Augustin Dumay and Pierre Amoyal.
Despite an intense career as a soloist, Michel Béroff has also pursued a career as a conductor and has taught at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSM) since 1989. For Wiener Urtext, he contributed to a new edition of Claude Debussy’s works. In 2006, Japanese television NHK invited him to give a series of fifteen masterclasses devoted to French music.
An exclusive EMI artist for more than twenty years, Michel Béroff has made over 50 recordings, including the complete works for piano and orchestra by Liszt, Prokofiev and Stravinsky conducted by Kurt Masur and Seiji Ozawa, as well as works by Bach, Brahms, Schumann, Dvořák, Mussorgsky, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen, Stravinsky and Bartók.
For Deutsche Grammophon, he recorded Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado. For the Denon label, he recorded the complete piano works of Claude Debussy in five CDs. His recordings have received five “Grand Prix du Disque” awards.
In recent seasons, Michel Béroff has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez, the New York Philharmonic with Kurt Masur, and the London Philharmonic on major tours in England and Spain. He has made three tours of Japan, including one with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, given complete performances in Paris of the piano works of Debussy and Janáček, and performed with the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Christophe Eschenbach. He has also given numerous concerts in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Greece, Brazil, Korea and China.