Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Known for a trademark grin and dynamic control, French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard has won plaudits from critics and audiences worldwide for his rendition of piano concertos by Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Dvorák and Ravel and contemporary composers. His many recordings have placed on the Billboard Charts and won Grammy Award nominations. Born in Lyon (September 9, 1957) he was a child prodigy who attended the Paris Conservatoire and studied with Yvonne Loriod and toured with her and her composer husband Olivier Messiaen. He won several prizes as a teenager and at 19 he became the resident soloist with conductor Pierre Boulez's Ensemble Intercontemporain, where he remained for 18 years. He toured with Boulez and played as a piano soloist with orchestras from Boston, Cleveland and Chicago to Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Paris, Toronto and St. Petersburg as well as at major festivals such as Edinburgh, Salzburg and Tanglewood. He played on an album of Messiaen's Les Préludes, Deux Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus in 1975 but his recording career really took off when he discovered the works of Hungarian composer György Ligeti and recorded his Études pour piano (1er Livre)/Trio pour violon, cor et piano/Tema-Cadeau with Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain in 1987. Later recordings of Ligeti - Works for Piano (1997), Chamber Music (1998) and Piano Concerto (2001) - won Grammy Award nominations. Aimard's many other releases for Warner Classics or Deutsche Grammophon include Debussy: Images/Études (2004) which went to number 42 on Billboard's Classical Albums chart, Ives: Concord Sonata (2004) with Susan Graham which reached number 40 and won a Grammy Award, Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5 (2004) which went to number 16, Bach: The Art of Fugue (2008) which hit number eight, Hommage à Messiaen (2008) which reached number 33, Ravel: The Piano Concertos / Miroirs (2010) which peaked at number 16, The Liszt Project (2011) which went to number 22, Debussy: Préludes Books 1 & 2 (2013) which also hit number 22, and Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier I (2014) which reached number 12. Signing with PentaTone label, Aimard followed his work on Messiaen with Catalogue d'Oiseaux (2018), and Visions de l'Amen, in duo with Tamara Stefanovich (2022). Among other albums are Beethoven: Hammerklavier Sonata & Eroica Variations (2021), Bartók: Piano Concertos with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony, and Bartók: Játékok (2025).