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).

The Estonian conductor and Grammy Award winner Paavo Järvi has served as Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen since 2004. One of the many highlights of this long standing collaboration was the widely acclaimed Beethoven cycle, whose performances were celebrated by critics around the world and honoured with numerous awards, including the Echo Klassik for “Conductor of the Year.” The Beethoven project was followed by an intensive exploration of the symphonic works of Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms; both cycles likewise received multiple distinctions. Since autumn 2021, the orchestra has turned its focus to Joseph Haydn’s twelve London Symphonies, followed in 2024 by an in depth engagement with the symphonies of Franz Schubert.

Since the 2019/20 season, Paavo Järvi has also served as Music Director of the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich. Starting with the 2028/29 season, Järvi will assume the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra and the Pärnu Music Festival, which he established in 2011. As a guest conductor, he regularly appears with leading orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, Paavo Järvi was named Artist of the Year by both Gramophone magazine (UK) and Diapason (France). This was followed in 2019 by the Opus Klassik award for Conductor of the Year. Further honours include a Grammy Award for his recording of Sibelius’ Cantatas with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the title Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture. In recognition of his commitment to promoting the music of Jean Sibelius, he received the Sibelius Medal in 2015, and in 2012 he was awarded the Hindemith Prize for Art and Humanity. For his dedication to Estonian culture, Paavo Järvi was awarded the Order of the White Star by the President of Estonia in 2013, and in 2024 he received the Bremen Senate Medal for Art and Science.