Idil Biret manifested an outstanding gift for music at the age of three and was trained at the Paris Conservatory under the tutelage of Nadia Boulanger. She studied with Alfred Cortot and was a lifelong disciple of Wilhelm Kempff who considered her his best student. Since the age of sixteen Idil Biret has given concerts throughout the world with major orchestras including the London Symphony, the Philharmonia, the BBC Orchestras, Leningrad Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Dresden Staatskapelle, Berlin Radio Symphony, French National Orchestra, Polish Radio Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Warsaw Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Among the eminent conductors with whom she has collaborated are Pierre Monteux, Joseph Keilberth, Hermann Scherchen, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Alexander Dimitreev, Eric Leinsdorf, Rudolf Kempe, Adrian Boult, Malcolm Sargent, Charles Mackerras, Moshe Atzmon, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Andrew Davis, Anthony Wit and Aaron Copland.

Idil Biret has participated in many festivals including Montreal, Berlin, Paris, Nohant, Duszniki, Athens, Persepolis, Dubrovnik, Montreal, Royan, Montpellier, Weimar and Istanbul. She has played Beethoven Sonatas with Yehudi Menuhin and the Mozart Concerto for two pianos with Wilhelm Kempff. Idil Biret has been member of the juries of many competitions including the Van Cliburn (USA), Queen Elisabeth (Belgium), Montreal (Canada), Busoni (Italy), Liszt (Weimar, Germany, Utrecht, Holland) Messiaen (Paris) and Richter (Moscow). She has received the following awards; Lily Boulanger Memorial, Boston; Harriet Cohen - Dinu Lipatti Gold Medal, London; Adelaide Ristori prize, Italy; Artistic Merit and Order of Merit, Poland; Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite, France; State Artist, Turkey. She is the recipient of honorary doctorates from many universities.

Idil Biret has played, in cycles, the complete piano works of Beethoven and Brahms. In the 1980s, in two series of concerts, she performed Beethoven’s thirty-two Sonatas and the piano transcriptions (by Liszt) of all nine Symphonies, the latter broadcast live by Radio France. In the 1990s she played Beethoven’s five Piano Concertos, the Choral Fantasia and the Triple Concerto in five concerts. In 1997 she performed all the solo piano works of Brahms in a series of five recitals in Germany during the composer’s centennial anniversary.
Idil Biret has made more than eighty records for Decca, EMI, Atlantic/Finnadar, Naxos and other companies. These include the world premiere recording of the nine Beethoven Symphonies transcribed by Liszt for EMI (6LP/1986). She has also recorded the complete solo piano works and all the concertos of Chopin (15CD/1992), Brahms (12CD/1997), Rachmaninov (10CD/2000) and the three Piano Sonatas of Pierre Boulez (1995), the Etudes of Ligeti (2003), Stravinsky’s Firebird transcribed by the composer (2003) - all for Naxos - and Massenet’s Concerto with Franck’ Symphonic Variations and Les Djinns for Alpha in France (2006). Her recording of the complete works of Chopin was awarded a "Grand Prix du Disque Chopin" prize in Poland in 1995. The same year the recording of the Boulez Sonatas won the annual Golden Diapason award and was selected among the best recordings of the year by Le Monde newspaper in France. In 2004 the worldwide sales of her CDs reached two million copies and Naxos commemorated this event by presenting Biret with a platinum disc.

In 2006 Biret completed her recording of the complete cycle of Beethoven’s Sonatas which will be released worldwide on her own label IBA together with all the Piano Concertos (conducted by Antoni Wit) and the Liszt transcriptions of the Beethoven Symphonies. A book about her life story and musical thoughts was been published by Buchet/Chastel under the title “Idil Biret, a Turkish Pianist in France”, also published by Staccato Verlag in Germany in 2007. Polish and English translations of the book are progressing. She has now embarked on preparing a new edition of the complete piano scores of Chopin for the American music publishing firm IMC of NewYork. In 2007 the Polish President decorated Biret with his country’s highest honour for her contribution to Polish culture through her recordings and performances of Chopin’s music.