Press: Press Features

November 27, 2012
Pierre-Laurent Aimard Reflects on the Rite of Spring in the Huffington Post

In June of 1912, a legendary meeting occurred between composers Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky. In preparation for the premiere of Stravinsky's masterpiece The Rite of Spring, the two composers sat down at the piano and played through -- (without rehearsing! ) -- the first half of the ballet. An observer, Louis Laloy, was left in shock: "We were dumbstruck, overwhelmed by this hurricane which had come from the depths of the ages, and which had taken life by the roots."

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November 21, 2012
"Aimard to show quintessential contemporary classical music" with debut Seoul recital

"French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, widely hailed as the guardian of modern piano compositions, will be performing for the first time in Korea at LG Arts Center in southern Seoul" wrote Korea's Herald. "A master of Gyrgy Ligeti, a well-known composer who was Aimard’s teacher, he is expected to woo his Korean audience into the world of modern music with his transparent and honest approach ... He does not reflect subjectivity in his playing. He breaks down the piece note by note and assembles them without reflecting his interpretation.

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November 15, 2012
Wall Street Journal - "Understanding Debussy"

"Pierre-Laurent Aimard, 55, has the uncanny ability of seeming to be everywhere at once. One moment the French pianist is performing as an artist-in-residence at Carnegie Hall, the next he is doing the same at Vienna's Konzerthaus or Paris's Cité de la Musique, all the while fulfilling his responsibilities as artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. In between he will play concerts world-wide and turn out recordings as effortlessly as if they were the proverbial hotcakes." The Wall Street Journal interviews Pierre-Laurent in advance of his Carnegie Hall recital

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November 11, 2012
Pierre-Laurent Aimard pays tribute to Elliott Carter on BBC Radio 3's "Music Matters"

Pierre-Laurent Aimard was amongst those who paid tribute to Elliott Carter on this week's Music Matters - "He achieved a kind of supreme freedom in writing. His flight in the 60's and 70's was to forge and organise a language that would be his language and allow him to compose as visionary for the time and then, being the master of his own language, he could express everything in music and he could be poetic, lyrical, funny, complex, moving, dramatic as he wanted and every piece by him had a different ID."

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