Idil Biret was born in Ankara. She started to play the piano at the age of three and later studied at the Paris Conservatoire under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger, graduating at the age of fifteen with three first prizes. She was pupil of Alfred Cortot and a lifelong disciple of Wilhelm Kempff. The Idil Biret Archive label is now issuing her old and new recordings which are being distributed worldwide by Naxos on CD and digitally. More than fifty CDs have been released so far. Her new recording of all the five piano concertos of Hindemith with the Yale Symphony Orchestra was released worldwide by Naxos in October 2013.