Pierre-Laurent Aimard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (born 9 September 1957) is a French pianist.

[edit] Life

Pierre-Laurent Aimard was born in Lyon, where he entered the conservatory. Later he studied with Yvonne Loriod. In 1973 he was awarded the chamber music prize of the Paris Conservatoire. In the same year he won the first prize at the international Olivier Messiaen Competition. In 1977, at the invitation of Pierre Boulez, he became a founding member of the Ensemble InterContemporain.

He has collaborated with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Zubin Mehta, Charles Dutoit, André Previn, Andrew Davis, and David Robertson. He made his American debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of twenty performing the piano solo part in Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie.

[edit] Repertoire

Aimard is particularly committed to contemporary music. He was the soloist in several premieres of works like Répons by Pierre Boulez, Klavierstück XIV by Karlheinz Stockhausen or the études number 11 and 13 by György Ligeti. He also performed the work of younger composers such as George Benjamin and Marco Stroppa.