Born in Lyon in 1957, Pierre-Laurent Aimard studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Yvonne Loriod and in London with Maria Curcio. Early career landmarks included winning first prize in the 1973 Messiaen Competition at the age of 16 and being appointed, three years later, by Pierre Boulez to become the Ensemble intercontemporain’s first solo pianist.

He performs with major orchestras under conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Chailly and many more. He has been invited to create, direct and perform in a number of residencies, with projects at such as Carnegie Hall, New York’s Lincoln Center, Vienna’s Konzerthaus or Berlin’s Philharmonie. Aimard is also the Artistic Director of the prestigious and historic Aldeburgh Festival.

Aimard has had close collaborations with many leading composers like György Kurtag, Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter and more. Carter’s last piece Epigrams for piano, cello and violin was written for Pierre-Laurent Aimard and premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival in June 2013. He had a long association with Ligeti, recording his complete works for piano.

He was the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award (2005) and was named ›Instrumentalist of the Year‹ by Musical America (2007). In 2015 he launched a major online resource centred on the performance and teaching of Ligeti’s piano music in collaboration with Klavier-Festival Ruhr.

Pierre-Laurent has made many highly successful recordings such as his first DG release, Bach’s Art of Fugue, that received both the Diapason d’Or and Choc du Monde de la Musique awards. Recently Aimard has been honoured with ECHO Klassik Awards, a Grammy award (2005) and a Germany’s Schallplattenkritik Honorary Prize (2009).

Matthias Pintscher is one of the leading composers of our time. His works are regularly performed by major symphony orchestras around the world. In 2021, his compositions took centre stage at the Suntory Hall Summer Festival with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. In addition, ›neharot‹ celebrated its world premiere – a work jointly commissioned by the Staatskapelle Dresden, among others, which has also appointed him Kapelle Composer. In the 2016/17 season, Pintscher was the first Composer in Residence at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. He has also held this position at the Salzburg Festival and the Lucerne Festival. For the past ten years, Pintscher has been Music Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the legendary Parisian ensemble for contemporary music founded by Pierre Boulez. Pintscher has also been professor at the Julliard School since 2014.

Matthias Pintscher is also a sought-after guest conductor and has conducted several opera productions at the Berlin State Opera (Wagner‘s ›Lohengrin‹ und ›Der fliegende Holländer‹), at the Vienna State Opera (Olga Neuwirth’s ›Orlando‹) and at the Théatre du Châtelet in Paris. In the 2023/24 season, he will be Creative Partner with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for the fourth year, where he will conduct a new work by Inti Figgis-Vizueta and an immersive video concert of Olivier Messiaen’s ›Des Canyons aux étoiles‹. Pintscher is on tour as a conductor with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, where he is Composer in Residence. In addition, he returns as a guest conductor to Milano Musica: Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester Hamburg, Indianapolis Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Barcelona Symphony, Lahti Symphony, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala and the Boulez Ensemble Berlin as well as for Beat Furrer’s ›Violetter Schnee‹ at the Berlin State Opera. In autumn 2024, this conductor-composer will take up his new position as Chief Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra. Matthias Pintscher continues to enjoy a long collaboration with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen.