Friedrich Gulda (16 May 1930 - 27 January 2000) was an Austrian pianist, composer and musical crossover artist. Coming from a classical background, he began playing the piano at the age of seven. At the age of 12, he began his musical education with Bruno Seidlhofer (piano) and Joseph Marx (music theory and composition) at the Vienna Academy of Music, now the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. At the age of 16, he won the Geneva International Music Competition and quickly rose to international fame. Friedrich Gulda was known for his prodigious memory. It took him only a few minutes to memorise a piece of music and then play it from memory. He was one of the few musicians in the world who, in addition to his achievements as a classical pianist, was able to play and improvise on an equal level with the jazz greats of his time. He praised jazz as "the truly progressive". In 1956, he played for the first time at Birdland in New York, followed by performances with his friend Joe Zawinul. Gulda"s improvisational encounters in the 1980s, including at the Munich Piano Summer with jazz colleague Chick Corea, are legendary. In the 1970s Friedrich Gulda found a congenial partner, not only for life, in the drummer and singer Ursula Anders. With her and an illustrious cast of fellow musicians (including Albert Mangelsdorff, John Surman and Cecil Taylor), he recorded "Nachricht Vom Lande" at Schloss Moosham in the Salzburg region (Austria) in the summer of 1976, which was released as a double LP on the Brain label in 1976. This was unusual for the label, which had made a name for itself with progressive rock and Krautrock releases. But Gulda always did what he wanted, an enfant terrible not only in music.