Abdel Rahman el Bacha

Lebanon's Abdel Rahman El Bacha is among the leading pianists to have emerged from the Middle East in the 20th century. He has an unusually large repertory of concertos and solo works stretching from Bach to Prokofiev. El Bacha won the 1978 Queen Elizabeth Competition in Belgium, which led to his first album, Early Works of Prokofiev, in 1983. In 2011, he recorded Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, but many of his recordings focus on Chopin and on the Russsian virtuoso school. He released the album Chopin: Préludes, Fantaisie, Berceuse & Barcarolle in 2022.