Hélène Grimaud

Will she feel at home in the Netherlands especially in the Veluwe? After all, that is where wolves now prowl and devour sheep after sheep. Or will it still be the concert hall, preferably Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, with a beautiful Steinway-D grand piano and a breathless audience? French pianist Hélène Grimaud is at home in both worlds. The one full of wilderness, where the particular wild animal is the most powerful. And the one of culture, where man rules and strives to bring structure.

At 13, she stepped boldly across the threshold of the Paris Conservatory and was promptly accepted, Three years later she won first prize for piano. She was only sixteen when her CD with Rachmaninov's doggedly difficult Second Sonata won the Grand Prix du Disque de l'Académie Charles Cros. Eighteen when conductor Daniel Barenboim invited her to play solo with the Orchestre de Paris - the beginning of a career that saw her perform with the world's greatest orchestras.

Grimaud's most recent CD is titled The Messenger. An intriguing dialogue between a Mozart piano concerto and Two Dialogues by contemporary Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov. 'I have always been interested in unpredictable combinations, because I feel that certain pieces can shine a special light on each other.' Wolves and music - another unpredictable combination. And so Grimaud still finds herself either behind the concert grand piano or at the Wolf Conservation Center she founded on a high, remote hill next to her ranch north of New York.