Gustav Klimt

Pierre-Laurent Aimard is widely acclaimed as a key figure in the music of our time and has had close collaborations with many leading composers including György Ligeti whose complete works for piano he has recorded. He has also worked with Stockhausen, George Benjamin, and Pierre Boulez who appointed Aimard, aged 19, to become the Ensemble intercontemporain´s first solo pianist. Praised by The Guardian as “one of the best Messiaen interpreters around” Aimard has had a close association to the composer himself and with Yvonne Loriod, with whom he studied at the Paris Conservatoire. 

In the 2021/22 season he continues to tour internationally working closely with leading orchestras and conductors including Münchner Philharmoniker and Kent Nagano, Philharmonia Orchestra and Pablo Heras-Casado, hr-Sinfonieorchester and Alain Altinoglu, Wiener Symphoniker and David Afkham as well as San Francisco Symphony and Esa-PekkaSalonen with whom he will record Bartók’s Piano Concertos Nos.1&3.

In recital and chamber projects Aimard remains committed to championing contemporary composers, performing works this season by Klaus Ospald and Mark Andre. He will also give performances of Messiaen’s Vingt Regards at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and collaborate with leading instrumentalists Mark Simpson and Jean-Guihen Queyras for trio recitals including works by Lachenmann at the Auditorio Nacional de Música and Elbphilharmonie. 

Highlights of 2020/21 included a position as ‘Artist in Resonance’ for Musikkollegium Winterthur where he celebrated a number of different composers over the season and opened with the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos. Other highlights included recitals in Paris for Bach’s Well Tempered Klavier and appearances at Kunstfestspiele Herrenhausen for Birtwistle’s Keyboard Engine for two pianos and the BBC Proms for Ravel’s Concerto in G Major alongside Sir George Benjamin and Mahler Chamber Orchestra. 

Having recently released a new disc of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Eroica Variations for Pentatone to great critical acclaim, Aimard is also due to release a new recording of Visions de l’Amen with Tamara Stefanovich in 2022. Recent seasons have also included the release of Messiaen’s opus magnum Catalogue d’oiseaux for Pentatone, which was honoured with multiple awards including the prestigious German music critic’s award “Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik”.