Bösendorfer Artists & Friends
The soul of every instrument can only blossom through the passion of the people behind it. Since its inception, the history of Bösendorfer has been inextricably linked to the great interpreters, teachers, and passionate music lovers. Deeply rooted in the company's tradition is the connection with everyone who makes every fibre of the instrument sound.
A
Doris Adam
Carmen Adnet-Graf
Nazanin Aghakhani
Monty Alexander
Geri Allen
Giovanni Allevi
Wolfgang Ambros
Tori Amos
Donka Angatscheva
Emilio Angulo
Paul Anka
Francisco Araiza
Nareh Arghamanyan
Jan Jiracek von Arnim
Stefan Arnold
Racha Aronsky
Peter Aronsky
Susanna Artzt
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Stefan Askenase
Christian Ludwig Attersee
Arleen Auger
Leonore Aumaier
Charles Aznavour
B
Wilhelm Backhaus
Michael Badura
Paul Badura-Skoda
Gile Bae
Ingeborg Baldaszti
Jerome Barry
Karl Barth
Béla Bartók
Elena Bashkirova
Count Basie
Roland Batik
Yuko Batik
Gabriele Benackova-Cap
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
Tony Bennett
Alban Berg
Teresa Berganza
Christoph Berner
Elmer Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Beatrice Berrut
Walter Berry
Joseph Beuys
Aris Alexander Blettenberg
Idil Biret
Franz-Josef Birk
Franco Bonisolli
Bonney M
Victor Borge
Pierre Boulez
Johannes Brahms
Richard Branson
Alfred Brendel
Dave Brubeck
Rudolf Buchbinder
Markus Burger
Giovanni Bria
Anton Bruckner
William F. Buckley jun.
Ferruccio Busoni
C
Bruno Canino
Maria-Luisa Cantos
Pablo Casals
José Carreras
Benny Carter
Lucinda Carver
Gary Chang
Chevy Chase
James McChesney
Billy Childs
Aldo Ciccolini
Stanley Clark
Dagmar Clottu
Federico Colonia
Imogen Cooper
Chick Corea
Alfred Cortot
Bing Crosby
Carl Czerny
D
Georg Danzer
Dennis Russel Davis
Marcus Davy
Michael Deaver
Helmut Deutsch
Mike Del Ferro
Rick Dellaratta
Dora Deliyska
Jörg Demus
Robert Dennison
Anton Dermota
Marie & Claire Desmoulin
Monika Doerfler
Sir Niels Lan Doky
Placido Domingo
Klaus & Helen Donath
Nico Dostal
Evelyne Dubourg
George Duke
Antonin Dvorák
E
Bruno Eisner**
George Ebert
Peter Efler
Bertha Engel**
Duke Ellington
Philippe Entremont
Ivan Eröd**
Christoph Eschenbach
Harmut Esslinger
F
Michael Fennelly
Marialena Fernandes
Elena Filonova
Annie Fischer
Edith Fischer
Julius Fischer**
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Roberta Flack
Matthias Fletzberger**
Noel Flores
Homero Francesch
Aretha Franklin
Ingeborg Franzen
Albert Frantz
Justus Franz
Emil Friedberger**
Rudolph Friml
Yukino Fujiwara
G
Irwin Gage
Sergio Gallo
Rudolph Ganz
Mark Gasser
Mitzi Gaynor
Fabio & Sandro Gemiti
Sona Ghazarian
Antonie Geiger**
Richard Gere
Gordon Getty
Emil Gilels
Pavel Gililov
Saskia Giorgini
Richard Glas**
Bernd Glemser
Jesus Gonzales-Alonso**
Michael Gore
Gabriel Gorog
Ralf Gothoni
Hans Graf
Carlo Grante
Gu Jieting
Tibor Grasser
Johanna Gröbner
Edita Gruberova
Alfred Grünfeld
Frederike Grünfeld**
Friedrich Gulda
Paul Gulda
Rico Gulda
Simeon Goshev
H
Ingeborg Hallstein
Marvin Hamlisch
Marc-André Hamelin
Thomas Hampson
Lionel Hampton
George Harrison
Michael Allan Harrison
Hideyo Harada
HAVASI
Haruna Hirao
Gert Hecher
David Helfgott
Gottfried Hemetsberger
Tom Hewson
Markus Hinterhäuser
Christopher Hinterhuber
David Hirschfelder
Yuko Hisamoto
Thomas Hlawatsch
Friedrich Hoericke
Margarita Höhenrieder
Hans Höpfel**
Dustin Hoffman
Ludwig Hoffmann
Leonard Hokanson
Hugo Holik
Robert Holl
Bob Hope
Stephen Hough
Nóra Emödy & Ahmed Abou-Zahra
Michael Hruby
Marc Hunziker
Manfred Huss
I
Janice Ian
Abdullah Ibrahim
Silvaine Ilario
Akira Imai
Madoka Inu
J
Michael Jackson
František Janoska
Judith Jáuregui
Alexander Jenner**
Steve Jobs
Billy Joel
Gwyneth Jones
Michael Jones
Quincy Jones
Vakhtang Jordania**
Dorothea Josefowitz**
K
Emmerich Kálmán
Hans Kann
Herbert van Karajan
Christiane Karajew
Gita Karasik
Seth Kaufman
Urho Kekkonen
Oliver Kern*
Rainer Keuschnig
Dorothy Khadem-Missagh
Wilhelm Kienzl
Jeong-Won Kim**
Daumantas Kirilauskas
Yoshiko Kishino
Akiko Kitagawa**
Wilhelm Klassen**
Walter Klien**
Julia Kociuban
Zoltán Kodály
Josephine Koh
Till Alexander Körber
Anna Magdalena Kokits
Lubka Kolessa**
Tomasz Konieczny
Alfons & Aloys Kontarsky
Bela Koreny
Alexei Kornienko
Avedis Kouyoumdijan*
Alfredo Kraus
Emilie Krebs**
Georg Kreisler
Gidon Kremer
Ernst Krének
Lior Kretzer
Thomas Kreuzberger
Joan Kroc
Johannes Kropfitsch**
Florian Krumpöck
Eduard & Johannes Kutrowatz
Toshihiro Kaneshige
L
Peter LaHaye
Mads Langer
Elena Larina
Johanna Jimin Lee**
Marianne Lederer**
Franz Léhar
Robert Lehrbaumer
Konrad Leitner
Jean Lemaire
Jack Lemmon
Rodolfo Leone*
Hans Leygraf
Cecilia Li
Adela Liculescu**
JJ Lin
Marjana Lipovšek
Michael Lipp
Valentina Lisitsa
Franz Liszt
Margarete Löwit**
Bob Long
Yvonne Loriod
Louis Lortie
Jacques Loussier
Christa Ludwig
Gianluca Luisi
David Lutz
M
Lorin Maazel
Gustav Mahler
Oleg Maisenburg
Adam Makowicz
Alan Mandel
Alexander Mandeltort**
Wolfgang Manz
Christos Marantos
Rosario Marciano
Johannes Marian
Giuseppe Mariotti
Ana-Marija Markovina
Maria Mazo*
Paul McCartney
Leon Francis McCawley*
Ingrid Marsoner
Guido Mayer **
Heinz Medjimorec
Aaron Mendelssohn
Yehudi Menuhin
Oliver Messiaen
Brigitte Meyer**
Aleksandra Mikulska
Anthony J. Millard
Stephan Möller
Dudley Moore
Olive Moorefield
Barbara Moser
Eduard Mrazek**
Olli Mustonen
Aziza Mustafa-Zadeh
Anne Sophie Mutter
Taras Mykyscha**
N
Maki Namekawa
Napoleon III (Eugenie)
Gregorio Nardi
Mariam Nazarian
Willie Nelson
J.B. Nethercutt
Elly Ney
Stevie Nicks
Francesco Nicolosi
Anna Nikel**
O
Johan O'Conor**
John O'Conor*
Garrick Ohlsson
David and Igor Oistrach
Ferhan & Ferzan Önder
Gerhard Oppitz
Harald Ossberger
David Owen-Norris
John Owings
P
Marialy Pacheco
Lois Carole Pachucki*
Ignacy Paderewski
Aimo Pagin
Charlemagne Palestine
Natalia Pankova*
Anthony & Joseph Paratore
Güher & Süher Pekinel
Alfredo Perl
Hans Petermandl**
Oscar Peterson
Roberta Pili**
Erika Pluhar
Robert Pobitschka
Dagmar Pöltl-Cesnik**
Jean-Luc Ponty
Lucia Popp
Carmen Lopez Portillo
Viktoria Postnikowa
André Previn
Hermann Prey
Margaret Price
William Primrose
Elsa Prinz**
Meinhard Prinz
R
Kurt Rapf
Roland Raupenstrauch**
Freddie Ravel
Stefanie Rath**
Donald Regan
Gabor Reijto
Dianne Reeves
Lionel Ritchie
Konrad Richter
Sviatoslav Richter
David Robinson
Eduardo Rojas
Dario de Rosa
Jerome Rose
Peter Rosegger
Carol Rosenberger
Mstislav Rostropovich
Gonzalo Rubacalba
Allen Roubik
Anton Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein
Herbert Rüdisser
Eugenie Russo
S
Matti Salminen
Roman Salvatore
Arturo Sandoval
Emil von Sauer
Matt Savage
Wolfgang Sawallisch
Fazil Say
Serene
Johannes Schaaf
Steffan Scheja
Philipp Scheucher
András Schiff
Lalo Schiffrin
Ragna Schirmer
Ronald Schneider
Arnold Schoenberg
Peter Schreier
Gilbert Schuchter
Claus Christian Schuster
Gilbert Schuchter
Ingmar Schwindt
Bob Seger
George Shearing
Norman Shetler
Henri Sigfridsson
Antti Aleksi Siirala
Rick Silanskas
Jan Simon
Mzia Simonishvili
Frank Sinatra
Wibi Soerjadi
Vladimir Sokoloff
Christoph Soldan
Matthias Soucek
Charles Spencer
Jasminka Stancul
Max Steiner
Robert Stempel
Hans-Peter & Volker Stenzl
Sting
Johann Strauß
Gerda Struhal
Cheryl Studer
László Szelényi
T
Peter Takacs
Jeffrey Tate
Cecil Taylor
Dan Tepfer
John Tesh
James Tocco
Yoko Tokue
Sayaka Tomioka
Christoph Traxler
Daniil Trifonov
Veronika Trisko
Marie Turzansky**
Joseph S. Tushinsky
McCoy Tyner
U
V
Ambrosio Valero
Vangelis
Jimmy van Heusen
Wessel van Wyk**
Vienna Art Orchestra
Pieter van Vollenhoven
Natasa Velijkovic
Stefan Vladar*
Anton Voigt
Ana Voileanu-Nicoară
Anna Volovitch
W
Richard Wagner
Manfred Wagner-Artzt
Anna & Ines Walachowsky
Jerry Jeff Walker
Gottlieb Wallisch
Maria Walzer
The Washington Music
Hans Weber**
Konstantin Wecker
Robert Weirich
Erik Werba
Robert Werner
Randy Weston
Roger Whittaker
Elzbieta Wiedner-Zajac
Wiener Philharmoniker
John Williams
Kenneth Willson
Peter Wolf
Senka Wolfrum
Stevie Wonder
Ron Wood
Rosemarie Wright**
Christine Wu
Ying Wu
Z
Frank Zappa
Joe Zawinul
Julius Zeman
Alexander Zemlinski**
Henriette Zettermayer**
Franz Zettl
Axel Zwingenberger
* Winner of the International Beethoven Piano Competition Vienna
** Winner of the Bösendorfer Piano Competition
The Bösendorfer Ring
In the spirit of its founders Ignaz and Ludwig, Bösendorfer donated a golden ring set with diamonds to honour the artistic and social commitment of a pianist in 1953. It is also intended to convey the idea that living sound diversity not only enriches us all, but that listening to and listening together can also symbolise peaceful coexistence.
Photo: Alexander Barylli (Fayer)
The Ring Bearer
The Bösendorfer Ring was first awarded to Wilhelm Backhaus in 1953 on the occasion of the company's 125th anniversary. The honour took place after the gala concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Clemens Krauss, in which Backhaus himself played.
Paul Badura-Skoda received the Bösendorfer Ring in 1978 after the celebrations to mark the company's 150th anniversary with a Philharmonic concert conducted by Horst Stein.
After his solo concert in June 2024 in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, Sir András Schiff received the Bösendorfer Ring and was also awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art 1st Class.
What all ring bearers have in common is that they have performed and still perform on international stages and carry the Bösendorfer sound out into the world. They are important ambassadors for the diversity of sound in general and the specific Bösendorfer sound in particular.