Idil Biret 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 embarked on her career as a soloist at the age of seventeen appearing with major orchestras in the principal music centres of the world. 

Her more than one hundred records since the 1960s include the first recordings of Liszt’s transcriptions of the nine symphonies of Beethoven for EMI which she recorded at the Church of Chamon Gistoux in Belgium in 1986, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique for Atlantic/Finnadar and for Naxos the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin, Rachmaninov, the three Sonatas of Boulez, the Etudes of Ligeti and the Firebird piano transcription by Stravinsky, with a Marco Polo disc of the piano compositions and transcriptions of her mentor Wilhelm Kempff. Her Boulez recording the Golden Diapason of the year award in France in 1995 and the complete Chopin recordings have received a Grand Prix du Disque Frédéric Chopin award in Poland the same year. 

Her new recording of all the 5 piano concertos of Hindemith with the Yale Symphony Orchestra was released worldwide by Naxos in October 2013 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his passing away. All the 100 plus recordings Idil Biret made since 1959 will be released in a single set containing ten boxes (Idil Biret 100 Edition) towards the end of 2016 .