Born in Zagreb, Croatia, Dalia Lazar’s artistry is rooted in the philosophy that the performer is a direct extension of the instrument—a belief instilled by her first teacher, Oliva Zadobosek. A child prodigy, Lazar made history at sixteen as the youngest student and the first Croatian admitted to the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Following her graduation, she refined her artistry in London and New York under the legendary guidance of Karl Ulrich Schnabel and Maria Curcio.
Since her acclaimed debut at Carnegie Recital Hall, Lazar has performed extensively as a soloist across Europe, the United States, Israel, and Latin America. She is celebrated for a rare combination of emotional depth and intellectual rigor, expressed most profoundly through her command of the works of Frédéric Chopin. Her performances carry a "stately authority and nobility" (Yediot Achronot), marked by what pianist Tzimon Barto calls "that rare combination of charisma, personality, and extraordinary pianistic ability." From Venezuela’s Panorama to the Daily Republic, critics have celebrated her "profound sentiment, impeccable phrasing, and musical excellence."
Beyond the stage, she is the founder and artistic director of the Visioni Musicali series in Panicale, Italy, and Visions Musicales in Turenne, France, where she curates immersive programs that invite audiences into a shared world of musical discovery and profound feeling.
As far as my memories can reach, it was the love for piano I remember most. Upon hearing music, everything around me became alive. The paintings in my grandmother’s room, the trees outside the window, the courtyard’s balconies, suddenly displayed their own life and movement. At that time, I was five years old, growing up in Zagreb, Croatia. My mother, noticing the effect that music had on me, took me to concerts, where I insisted we sit in the first row from where I experienced feelings of wonder and happiness that have stayed with me since.
At the age of six, Zagreb piano lessons began. At sixteen Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory study followed. Five years of grueling training with endless practicing on splintered keys, benches of wobbly wood, and food lines longer than time away from practicing could bear. But, in playing and performing in the great halls of the conservatory and throughout the Soviet Union, I found that same feeling of love for the piano that gave me the strength to endure any physical and emotional hardship.
In search of higher artistic knowledge and knowledge that comes from life experience, I took a chance at a performance aboard a cruise ship to the US. The ship cast off from Manhattan without its soloist, and my life began anew. I soon met my husband, violinist Lucian Lazar, with whom I shared an immense love of music and life, which always enveloped our playing. Together and as a soloist, I performed in North and South America, Israel, Switzerland, Croatia, Mexico, Romania, and Greece. After his untimely and sudden death, I stopped playing. A year later, remembering our ideals, that feeling which gave me strength so many times surfaced. I started playing again.
Music has brought me back to Europe where my playing began. As Artista in Residenza in Panicale, Italy, I continue to follow my dreams. In 2017 I created Visioni Musicali for Panicale followed in 2025 by a new edition, Visions Musicales, in Turenne, France to promote art and beauty and share my great love of music.