Francesco Piemontesi

Pianist Francesco Piemontesi, born in Locarno, studied with Arie Vardi before working with Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Cécile Ousset and Alexis Weissenberg. He rose to prominence by winning prizes at several competitions, including the 2007 Queen Elisabeth Competition. Between 2009 and 2011 he was a BBC New Generation Artist. He is widely renowned for his interpretations of Mozart and the early Romantic repertoire, though he also has a close affinity with later 19th and 20th-century works. At the beginning of the 2020/21 season, he made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic under Lahav Shani.

Francesco Piemontesi appears with major ensembles worldwide, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Israel Philharmonic, the Boston, Cleveland and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
He has performed with conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Charles Dutoit, Iván Fischer, Daniel Harding, Manfred Honeck, Marek Janowski, Neeme Järvi, Emmanuel Krivine, Ton Koopman, Zubin Mehta, Roger Norrington, Gianandrea Noseda, Antonio Pappano and Yuri Temirkanov.

He has given recitals at many prestigious venues including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, De Doelen in Rotterdam, the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Konzerthaus and Musikverein in Vienna, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York and the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. His chamber music partners include Leif Ove Andsnes, Yuri Bashmet, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Emmanuel Pahud, Heinrich Schiff, Christian Tetzlaff, Tabea Zimmermann and the Emerson Quartet.

He has also performed at various renowned festivals, including the Verbier Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron, the Chopin International Music Festival in Warsaw, the Lucerne, Aix-en-Provence and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals, the Rheingau Music Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. He launched major Schubert cycles in August 2018 and during the 2019/20 season at the Schubertiade, as well as in October 2019 at Wigmore Hall.

Francesco Piemontesi has made a number of recordings, including the Debussy Préludes, the Schumann and Dvořák piano concertos (with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jiří Bělohlávek) on Naïve Classique, Mozart’s 25th and 26th Piano Concertos with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Andrew Manze on Linn Records in 2017 and Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage on Orfeo in May 2019, combined with a documentary by filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon. His debut album on the Pentatone label featuring the last three Schubert sonatas was released in October 2019. During the 2020/21 season, he has been artist in residence with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, marking the Orchestra’s first ever named residency.

He has been artistic director of the Settimane Musicali di Ascona since 2012.