After performing in Buenos Aires, Barenboim made his international debut as a pianist in 1952 in Vienna and Rome. In 1955 he performed in Paris, in 1956 in London, and in 1957 in New York under the baton of Leopold Stokowski. Regular concert tours of Europe, the United States, South America, Australia and the Far East followed thereafter.
In June 1967, Barenboim and his then fiancée Du Pré gave concerts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheba before and during the Six-Day War.
His friendship with musicians Itzhak Perlman, Zubin Mehta, and Pinchas Zukerman, and marriage to du Pré led to the 1969 film by Christopher Nupen ofheir Schubert "Trout" Quintet.
Following his debut as a conductor with the English Chamber Orchestra in Abbey Road Studios, London, in 1966, Barenboim was invited to conduct by many European and American symphony orchestras. Between 1975 and 1989, he was music director of the Orchestre de Paris, where he conducted much contemporary music.
Barenboim made his opera conducting debut in 1973 with a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Edinburgh Festival. He made his debut at Bayreuth in 1981, conducting there regularly until 1999. In 1988, he was appointed artistic and musical director of the Opera-Bastille in Paris, scheduled to open in 1990, but was fired in January 1989 by the opera's chairman Pierre Bergé. Barenboim was then appointed music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 17 June 2006. He expressed frustration with the need for fund-raising duties in the United States as part of being a music director of an American orchestra.(Wikipedia)
