Following the success at the Chopin Piano Competition, he began his collaboration with the Berlin Philharmonic and has since performed with leading orchestras around the world as well as many prominent conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado and Simon Rattle.

Zimerman was born in Zabrze,[4] Southern Poland, and started to play the piano at the age of five encouraged by his father, who was also a pianist.

In 1973, he won top prize at the Ludwig van Beethoven International Piano Competition in Hradec Králové, Czechoslovakia.

In 1999, Zimerman created the Polish Festival Orchestra Archived 15 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's death.

Zimerman has collaborated with conductors and artists such as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Herbert von Karajan, Kirill Kondrashin, Erich Leinsdorf, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Stanisław Skrowaczewski and Wolfgang Sawallisch.

[6] On 26 April 2009, Zimerman vowed to his audience at Los Angeles's Walt Disney Concert Hall that, in protest at America's placement of a missile defense shield in Poland, this would be his final appearance in the United States.