Bernard Ringeissen is a French classical pianist.

He was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1934. His first teacher, at age 7, was Georges de Lausnay. He entered the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieure de Musique

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

 in 1947, aged 12, and won the Premier Prix when he was sixteen. He had further study with Marguerite Long

Marguerite Long

Marguerite Long was a French pianist and teacher.Marguerite Marie-Charlotte Long was born in Nîmes. She studied with Henri Fissot at the Paris Conservatoire, taking a premier prix in 1891, and privately with Antoine François Marmontel...

 and Jacques Février

Jacques Février

Jacques Février was a French pianist and teacher.Jacques Février was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the son of the composer Henry Février. He studied with Édouard Risler and Marguerite Long at the Paris Conservatoire, taking a premier prix in 1921...

. In 1953 he temporarily retired from public performance, to focus on music competition.

In 1954 he won equal 2nd Prize with Sergio Scopelliti at the Alfredo Casella

Alfredo Casella

Alfredo Casella was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor.- Life and career :Casella was born in Turin; his family included many musicians; his grandfather, a friend of Paganini's, was first cello in the San Carlo Theatre in Lisbon and eventually was soloist in the Royal Chapel in Turin...

 Competition in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

. He also won the International Music Performance Competition in Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

 that year. In 1955 he won 4th prize at the 5th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

; then equal 2nd Prize with Dimitri Bashkirov at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Competition

Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition

The Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition is an international classical music competition for pianists and violinists that has operated in France since 1943. It was created by the pianist Marguerite Long and the violinist Jacques Thibaud...

 (no 1st Prize was awarded that year). In 1962 he won 1st Prize at the Rio de Janeiro International Competition and the Villa-Lobos

Heitor Villa-Lobos

Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...

 Special Prize for his interpretation of Brazilian music.

He has performed widely and served on competition juries in many countries. He teaches in Rueil-Malmaison, and gives master-classes at the Salzburg Mozarteum and at the International Summer Seminar in Weimar.

His recordings include the complete piano works of Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

 and of Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

, and many works by Charles-Valentin Alkan

Charles-Valentin Alkan

Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso...

, Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

, Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

 (with Noël Lee

Noël Lee

Noël Lee is an American classical pianist and composer living in Paris, France.He studied music in Lafayette, Indiana, then attended Harvard University, studying with Walter Piston, Irving Fine, and Tillman Merritt and was also a student at the Longy School of Music in the early 1940s...

) and the Russian masters. He has also recorded Francis Poulenc

Francis Poulenc

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...

's Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra

Concerto for two pianos (Poulenc)

Francis Poulenc's Concerto for two pianos in D minor, FP 61, was commissioned by and dedicated to the Princess Edmond de Polignac and composed over the period of three months in the summer of 1932...

, with Gabriel Tacchino

Gabriel Tacchino

Gabriel Tacchino is one of the premier post-war French classical pianists; he also teaches piano.Tacchino was born in Cannes. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire from 1947 to 1953, where his teachers included Jacques Février and Marguerite Long...

 and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra

Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra

The Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra is the main orchestra in the principality of Monaco...

 under Georges Prêtre

Georges Prêtre

- Biography :He was born in Waziers , and attended the Douai Conservatory and then studied harmony under Maurice Duruflé and conducting under André Cluytens among others at the Conservatoire de Paris. Amongst his early musical interests were jazz and trumpet. After graduating, he conducted in a...

.