Pierre-Laurent Aimard

The French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who was born in Lyon in 1957, studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Yvonne Loriod and with Maria Curcio in London. He also took part in Pierre Boulez’s analysis seminars at IRCAM in Paris and attended György Kurtág’s courses in Budapest. In 1973, he won the Messiaen Prize in Royan and has since been regarded as a gifted interpreter of that composer’s works. When Boulez founded the Ensemble intercontemporain in 1976, he appointed Aimard as its principal pianist. There he worked closely with Kurtág, Harrison Birtwistle, Elliott Carter, Helmut Lachenmann, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Mario Stroppa, premiering many important works, including Boulez’s Répons and several Ligeti études. Most recently, he premiered Mark Andre’s . . . selig ist . . . (2024) and George Benjamin’s Divisions (2025). He also regularly performs “traditional” repertoire in carefully thought-out programs. Aimard was “artiste étoile” at Lucerne Festival in 2007 and has been artist-in-residence with the Berliner Philharmoniker, at the Vienna Konzerthaus, New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Tanglewood Festival, and London’s Southbank Centre. In the 2024-25 season, he focused intensively on Maurice Ravel to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, performing the Piano Concerto in G major with the Filarmonica della Scala, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Czech Philharmonic, among others. He also performed Peter Eötvös’s Cziffra Psodia with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Clara Iannotta’s Piano Concerto with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. He is currently celebrating Boulez’s 100th birthday with performances of his piano works. Pierre-Laurent Aimard received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2017 and the Léonie Sonning Music Prize in 2022. His recordings have garnered the German Record Critics’ Prize, the Diapason d’or, and the Choc du Monde de la Music. His latest album, Schubert: Ländler, was released in 2024.

Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on 23 August 1979 with the Swiss Festival Orchestra under Miltiades Caridis in Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques.

June 2025