Francesco Piemontesi is a pianist with a wide repertory and he specialization in Mozart and the early Romantics. He has appeared with many leading orchestras and at major venues in Europe and the U.S., performing a complete cycle of Mozart’s keyboard works at London’s Wigmore Hall.
Piemontesi was born in Locarno, in Switzerland’s Italian-speaking Ticino canton, on July 7, 1983, and grew up in nearby Tenero. Showing talent as a child, he made his concert debut in 1994 and enrolled at age 15 in classes at the Lugano University of Music.
He moved on to the Hannover University of Music and Drama in Germany after graduating from high school in 2002. There, he studied with Arie Vardi, and he later took lessons from Alfred Brendel, Alexis Weissenberg, and Murray Perahia.
Several breakthroughs paved the way for Piemontesi’s concert career: he won the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 2007 and the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in 2009, and he was named a BBC New Generation Artist for 2009-2011.
Since then, Piemontesi has been a fixture of symphonic seasons in Europe and the U.S., appearing as a concerto soloist with the likes of the London Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra. He has given recitals at the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York, and at Wigmore Hall in London, among many other venues.
Here is a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #3 as performed by Francesco Piemontesi:
