Pierre-Laurent Aimard
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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, David Robertson, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. 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 such as Répons by Pierre Boulez, Klavierstück XIV by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and the eleventh and thirteenth piano études of György Ligeti. One of his most notable recordings is that of the first two books of Ligeti's piano études. He has also performed the work of younger composers such as George Benjamin and Marco Stroppa. In addition to his commitment to contemporary music, in 2003 Aimard recorded the five Beethoven piano concertos with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
