Source: Hauser-Schmolck
Sensitivity and poetry, expression and brilliance, in combination with exceptional technical skills, make the Swiss-Italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi one of the most exciting musicians of our time. “Making music is like a second language for me. It feels like an existential necessity. I don’t want to entertain the audience, I want them to participate in the deep dimensions of music.”
His language is clearly understood worldwide: Francesco Piemontesi is regarded internationally as one of the leading interpreters of the entire repertoire, from Baroque to Classical, Romantic to Modernist, and music of the present day. As a soloist, he performs with top orchestras around the globe and is a welcome guest at festivals from Salzburg to the BBC Proms.
He regularly collaborates with distinguished conductors such as Gianandrea Noseda, Fabio Luisi, Antonio Pappano, Daniele Gatti, Daniele Rustioni, Lorenzo Viotti, Robin Ticciati, Iván Fischer, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Marek Janowski, Joana Mallwitz, Thomas Søndergård, Daniel Harding, Karina Canellakis, Paavo Järvi, Zubin Mehta, Nathalie Stutzmann, Elim Chan and Maxim Emelyanychev. Working with fellow musicians and orchestras alike, Francesco Piemontesi’s collaborations form themselves from the nucleus of friendship, appreciation and creativity. As adept on the concert stage as he is in smaller chamber combinations, Francesco Piemontesi appears with a variety of partners including Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, Janine Jansen, Daniel Müller-Schott, Augustin Hadelich and Jörg Widmann.
The 25/26 season includes the premiere of Beat Furrer’s Piano Concerto (dedicated to Francesco Piemontesi) with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Munich, as well as further solo appearances with Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Symphony Orchestra; in North America with Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Baltimore and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, and with Seoul Philharmonic.
Among his many important musical influences, he highlights his distinguished teachers Arie Vardi and Alfred Brendel, but above all French concert pianist Cecile Ousset. It is to her that he owes his rounded tone and a somnambulistic technique that is rooted in the French piano tradition. In 2024, Francesco Piemontesi collaborated with director Jan Schmidt-Garre to create the documentary “The Alchemy of the Piano.” Filmed over the course of a year, Piemontesi talks with some of the world’s leading performers, including his mentor, the late Alfred Brendel, Maria João Pires, Stephen Kovacevich, Yulianna Avdeeva and Antonio Pappano, in a series of revealing encounters that illuminate their individual approaches to the instrument, its colour and form.
Francesco Piemontesi is an exclusive artist with Pentatone, for whom he has recorded Liszt, Schönberg, Messiaen, Ravel, Bach and Schubert. Now his focus is on Brahms, and a recording of Piano Concerto No. 2 and the Intermezzi Op. 117 with the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig under Manfred Honeck, was released in 2025. The first piano concerto and Op. 118, also with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Manfred Honeck, is planned for 2026.
