Skip to page content

Pierre-Laurent Aimard

About this Artist

“A brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary” (Wall Street Journal), Pierre-Laurent Aimard is widely acclaimed as an authority on music of our time while recognized also for shedding fresh light on music of the past.  

In the 2024/25 season Aimard celebrates the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth with ensembles such as Berner Symphonieorchester, Teatro alla Scala Orchestra, SWR Symphonieorchester, and The Philadelphia Orchestra, and at the Kissinger Sommer and Litomyšl festivals with the Czech Philharmonic. He also marks the centenary of his teacher and close friend Pierre Boulez, appearing as a soloist alongside HR Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and in recital at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Wiener Musikverein, Auditorium National de Lyon, Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical in Madrid, and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden.  

Other highlights of 2024/25 include the late Péter Eötvös’ Cziffra Psodia with the Berlin Philharmonic and the world premieres of two works: …selig ist… for piano and electronics by Mark Andre at the Donaueschingen Festival and a new work for piano four hands by George Benjamin that will be premiered at Berlin’s Boulez Saal with Aimard performing alongside the composer. Aimard has had close collaborations with leading composers including Helmut Lachenmann, Elliott Carter, Harrison Birtwistle, György Kurtág, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Marco Stroppa, and Olivier Messiaen and has given many notable premieres, most recently Clara Iannotta’s Piano Concerto for the Acht Brücken Festival in Cologne, which he repeated with the Wiener Symphoniker under the direction of Elena Schwarz. He also continues his associations with chamber music partners both old and new, notably Tamara Stefanovich at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Zürich’s Fraumünster and actor Mathieu Amalric at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Aimard features prominently in numerous festival lineups throughout the year, including Musikfestspiel Berlin, Prague Spring Festival, and Klavierfestival Ruhr. His extensive recital schedule also includes Cité de la Musique in Paris, Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, Seoul Arts Centre, Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan, Konzerthaus Dortmund, and Alte Oper Frankfurt. 

In early 2024 Aimard released Schubert: Ländler. Awarded five stars by BBC Music Magazine, this record is the latest in a series of critically acclaimed collaborations with Pentatone, following his complete Bartók piano concertos with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony (2023), Visions de l’Amen (2022) recorded with Tamara Stefanovich, Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata & Eroica Variations (2021), and Messiaen’s magnum opus Catalogue d’oiseaux (2018), which garnered multiple awards including the prestigious German Record Critics’ Award. 

Aimard is the recipient of many prizes, including the prestigious International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2017 in recognition of a life devoted to the service of music and the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, Denmark’s most prominent music award, in 2022. 

A member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, Aimard has held professorships at the Hochschule Köln and was previously an Associate Professor at the Collège de France in Paris. In spring 2020, he relaunched a major online resource, Explore the Score, in collaboration with the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, which centers on the performance and teaching of Ligeti’s piano music.