Originally from Locarno, Italo-Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi has earned a reputation over the years as one of the leading performers of the German classical and romantic repertoire. He is invited to play regularly by the world’s foremost orchestras, concert halls and festivals, and served as Artistic Director for the Settimane Musicali di Ascona from 2021 to 2024.
Piemontesi's subtle, spellbinding interpretations of Schubert’s piano sonatas, as well as solo works and piano concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Liszt, have been acclaimed by critics and audiences alike. His playing is marked by sensitivity, intimacy and poetry, combined with power and brilliance. Above all, he seeks to bring life to the score from within: “Making music is like a second language for me. It is an existential necessity. I don’t want to entertain the audience; I want to invite them into the deeper dimensions of music.”
As a soloist, Francesco Piemontesi has performed with leading orchestras such as the Berlin, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Vienna Symphony, the Boston, Chicago, NHK and London Symphony Orchestras, the Cleveland Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Budapesti Fesztiválzenekar, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. He regularly collaborates with distinguished conductors including 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, Roger Norrington, Karina Canellakis, Paavo Järvi, Zubin Mehta, Nathalie Stutzmann, Elim Chan, and Maxim Emelyanychev.
For the 2025-2026 season, Piemontesi gives the world premiere of Beat Furrer’s Piano Concerto with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. He also performs with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester, the YLE Radion sinfoniaorkesteri, the Royal Scottish National Symphony Orchestra, as well as touring North America with the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Baltimore and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, and appearing with the Seoul Philharmonic.
In recital, he has recently appeared at Lyon's Maurice Ravel Auditorium, the Rudolfinum/Dvořák Hall, the Tonhalle Zürich, in La Chaux-de-Fonds and at the Schubertiade. This season, he performs at the Musikverein, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and London’s Wigmore Hall to which he is very closely connected.
Beyond the classical and romantic periods, Francesco Piemontesi’s repertoire includes works by Bach and Handel in original versions and transcriptions, piano concertos by Ravel, Debussy, Bartók, Rachmaninov and Schoenberg, as well as works by Olivier Messiaen and Unsuk Chin. Among his most significant musical influences are his eminent teachers Arie Vardi and Alfred Brendel, and above all the French concert pianist Cécile Ousset, to whom he owes his rounded tone and seemingly effortless technique rooted in the French piano tradition reaching back to Marcel Ciampi.
Francesco Piemontesi’s artistry is documented in numerous award-winning and critically acclaimed recordings, including Schubert’s late piano sonatas, Debussy’s Préludes, and Mozart’s piano concertos with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Andrew Manze, as well as two of the piano repertoire’s most demanding works: Liszt’sTranscendental Études and Sonata in B minor.
His collaborations are built on friendship, mutual admiration and creativity. He has recently been Artist in Residence with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Dresdner Philharmonie and the Gstaad Menuhin Festival. Equally at ease on concert stages and intimate chamber settings, Piemontesi performs with partners including Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, Janine Jansen, Daniel Müller-Schott, Augustin Hadelich and Jörg Widmann.
In November 2024, he collaborated with filmmaker Jan Schmidt-Garre to create the documentary The Alchemy of the Piano. Filmed over the course of a year, the film features Francesco Piemontesi in conversation with some of the world’s greatest performers, including his mentor Alfred Brendel, Maria João Pires, Stephen Kovacevich and Antonio Pappano, offering illuminating insights into each of their approaches to the instrument, its colour and form.
