Conductor Barenboim reveals Parkinson's diagnosis

One of the world's most pre-eminent conductors, Daniel Barenboim, has announced he has Parkinson's Disease.

The 82-year-old has served as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin State Opera and La Scala in Milan, but is equally well known for his efforts to promote peace through music in the Middle East.

In 2022, he cut back his performance schedule after developing a "serious neurological condition". In a statement on Thursday, he confirmed the long-suspected diagnosis of Parkinson's.

"I know that many people have been concerned about my health," he wrote, adding: "I have been very touched by the support I have received over the last three years."

The musician said he was not retiring altogether, and planned to "maintain as many of my professional commitments as my health permits".

He added that his priority was to ensure the future of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra , which he co-founded in 1999.

The ensemble is intended to promote co-operation among young musicians from Israel and Arab nations.

"It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace," Barenboim once noted. "It isn't. It's not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well.

"The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance. A project against the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it."

The orchestra's performances have been a regular highlight of the BBC Proms since their first visit in 2003.

Born in Argentina to Jewish parents, Barenboim rose to prominence as a prodigious young pianist, before moving to Israel as a teenager and going on to become a leading conductor, first in Israel and then in Australia with the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras.

He married the British cellist Jacqueline du Pré in Jerusalem in 1967, with du Pré converting to Judaism. Following her death, he married the Russian pianist Elena Bashkirova.

He became general musical director at Berlin's State Opera in 1992 and is credited is credited with reviving its fortunes after it fell into obscurity under communism.

In Jerusalem in 2001, he provoked controversy by conducting the Prelude to the opera Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner at the Israel Festival.

Wagner's music had been unofficially banned in Israel because of his anti-Semitic beliefs and the fact that he was Adolf Hitler's favourite composer.

Barenboim initially ceded to protests from Holocaust survivors and pressure from politicians - but at the end of the concert, he asked the audience if they wanted him to play Wagner after all.

Although some protested, calling it "the music of the concentration camps", the majority of concertgoers asked him to proceed. The performance ended with a standing ovation.

The conductor argued that, while Wagner was undoubtedly anti-semitic, he had died long before the rise of Naziism, and his music was "too important" to be ignored.

"I didn't want anybody who felt unable to hear this music because of the association [with Nazism] to be confronted with it," he told Israeli radio.

"But people who don't have the association should be able to hear it."

In 2011, he received an honorary knighthood - the highest honour for foreign citizens - in recognition of his work towards reconciliation in the Middle East through music.

As well as having Israeli citizenship, he accepted honorary Palestinian citizenship in 2008 - making him the first person to hold both Israeli and Palestinian passports.

In his statement, the conductor vowed to continue conducting the West-Eastern Divan "whenever my health allows me to".

"At the same time," he continued, "I will take an active role in ensuring that the Divan has the opportunity of working with excellent conductors going forward.

"I have been navigating this new reality of mine and my focus is on receiving the best available care. I thank everyone for their kindness and well-wishes."