Pierre-Laurent Aimard is not only one of the key figures in the music of our times, but also continually sheds new light on music of the past. Highlights of the 2025/26 season have included performances of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (Volume II) at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Southbank Centre, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, the Stockholm Konserthuset and as part of the Boston Celebrity series. He also celebrated the 100th birthday of his long-term collaborator György Kurtág with concerts at Müpa Budapest, the Philharmonie Luxembourg and as part of his residency at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid. As a soloist he has appeared with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.
Among the leading composers with whom he has worked are Harrison Birtwistle, Elliott Carter, György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Marco Stroppa and Clara Iannotta. In June 2025 he gave the world premiere of George Benjamin’s Divisions for piano four hands at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, performing alongside the composer himself. This season they performed the work at 92NY and the Wigmore Hall in London.
He has also continued his collaborations with regular chamber music partners such as Isabelle Faust, Jörg Widmann and Jean-Guihen Queyras, touring to venues including the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, the Cologne Philharmonie and the Vienna Konzerthaus.
His extensive discography includes Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux (2018, awarded the German Record Critics’ Award), Beethoven’s ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata and ‘Eroica’ Variations (2021), Visions de l’Amen (2022) with Tamara Stefanovich, Bartók’s complete piano concertos with the San Francisco Symphony under Esa-Pekka Salonen (2023) and two BBC Music Magazine Award-winning albums: Schubert: Ländler (2024) and Kurtág: Játékok (2025). Most recently he released his album of The Well-Tempered Clavier (Volume II) in October 2025 with Pentatone.
An innovative curator and artist in residence, he has directed and performed in events including for Musikkollegium Winterthur, was artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 2009 to 2016 and relaunched the online resource ‘Explore the Score’ with the Ruhr Piano Festival, exploring the piano works of György Ligeti.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and has won numerous awards, including the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2017 and Denmark’s Léonie Sonning Music Prize in 2022
