| Biography | Barry Douglas OBE (born 23 April 1960 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a classical pianist and conductor. He studied piano, cello, clarinet and organ while growing up in Belfast. He first studied in Belfast while attending Methodist College Belfast and, at 16, had lessons with Felicitas LeWinter, a pupil of Emil von Sauer and grand-pupil of Franz Liszt. In London he studied with John Barstow for four years and then studied privately with Maria Curcio, the last and favourite pupil of Artur Schnabel, going on to study with the Russian pianist Yevgeny Malinin in Paris. He won the Bronze Medal at the Van Cliburn Competition in Texas in 1985 and the top prize in the Santander Paloma O'Shea International Piano Competition competition in Spain. He won the gold medal, outright in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1986, the first non-Russian pianist to do so since Van Cliburn in 1958 |