Pierre-Laurent Aimard
"I regard Pierre-Laurent Aimard as the leading performer of contemporary piano music today. He has secured himself this outstanding rank through his technical mastery, through the poetry of his touch and the full spectrum of its shadings, and through his total identification with the spirit of each work."
György Ligeti
Widely acclaimed as a key figure in the music of our time and as a leading interpreter of the standard piano repertoire, Pierre-Laurent Aimard enjoys an internationally celebrated career which transcends traditional boundaries.
Aimard performs throughout the world each season with the major orchestras under conductors including Pierre Boulez, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Christoph Eschenbach, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, David Robertson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Franz Welser-Möst.
During the 2006/07 season he curated and performed in his own "Perspectives" series at Carnegie Hall in New York, a "carte blanche" at the Konzerthaus Vienna, and was pianist-in-residence with the Berlin Philharmonic. 2007 has also featured a ground breaking song and chamber music recital series at the Palais Garnier, Opera de Paris; and his invitation as "artiste étoile" at the Lucerne Festival.
In 2008 he is Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, London's Messiaen festival; and "Artist-in-residence" both for the Mozarteum Salzburg and with the Cleveland Orchestra. The Cité de la Musique, Paris also invites him to curate a "Domaine privé"; and he continues as Artistic Partner with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra. Through professorships in Cologne and Paris, as well as series of concert lectures and workshops worldwide, he sheds an inspiring and very personal light on music from all periods. He was the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award in spring 2005 and was named by Musical America Instrumentalist of the Year 2007.
Born in Lyon, France in 1957, Pierre-Laurent Aimard studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Yvonne Loriod, and in London with Maria Curcio. Early career landmarks included winning first prize in the 1973 Messiaen Competition, and being appointed at the age of 19 by Pierre Boulez to become the Ensemble InterContemporain's first solo pianist. For more than 15 years Aimard collaborated closely with György Ligeti, recording his complete works.
In recent years Pierre-Laurent Aimard has been honored with ECHO Classic Awards, both in 2003 for his recording of the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt; and in 2004 for his Debussy Images and Etudes. Aimard’s recording of Ives’s Concord Sonata and Songs with Susan Graham was a Grammy Award winner in 2005. Recent releases include recital discs of Ravel, Carter and Schumann; while Mozart Piano Concertos with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, directed from the keyboard by Aimard, have been hailed as "one of the most exquisite Mozart recordings of all time" (Wolfram Goertz, Die Zeit, 13 October, 2005). In August 2007 Pierre-Laurent Aimard signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft - his first disc under this agreement, Bach: Art of Fugue, is due for release in Spring 2008.
