Gilles Vonsattel, piano

Winner of a 2008 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of uncommon versatility. With repertoire that ranges from Bach’s “Art of the Fugue” to works by Iannis Xenakis, and equally comfortable as a soloist and chamber musician, Vonsattel displays a musical curiosity and sense of adventure that has gained him many admirers. His performance highlights during the 2013-2014 Season include Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major with the Springfield (MA) Symphony, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 with the Quebec Symphony, recital debuts at the Festival Lucerne and in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, as well as recitals in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Detroit, Frankfurt, and Ludwigshafen (Germany).

Mr. Vonsattel began touring in concert after capturing the top prize at the prestigious 2002 Naumburg International Piano Competition. He made his Alice Tully Hall debut that same year and has since performed with the Warsaw Philharmonic; at Zí¼rich’s Tonhalle, Warsaw’s Chopin Festival, and Tokyo’s Opera City Hall; and in the U.S. with the Utah, Santa Fe, Nashville, and Grand Rapids symphonies, and the Boston Pops Orchestra. In July 2010 he made his Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood debuts in the Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor under Herbert Blomstedt. He played the same concerto in May 2012 with the Calgary Philharmonic under Roberto Minczuk. In July 2011 he made his San Francisco Symphony debut playing Mozart and he returned in July 2012 to play Beethoven’s Concerto No. 1, again under conductor Michael Francis.

Gilles Vonsattel has performed in recital on the stages of Boston’s Symphony Hall, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, Aspen Music Festival’s Benedict Music Tent, Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, and Geneva’s Victoria Hall. Recent recitals include performances at the Library of Congress, Wigmore Hall, the Gilmore Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron, Musée d’Orsay, Davos Festival, Zí¼rich’s Tonhalle, Warsaw’s National Philharmonic Hall, La Jolla Music Society, the Munich Gasteig and Atlanta’s Spivey Hall. He has also appeared at such prestigious festivals as Rockport, Angelfire, Ottawa, Bridgehampton, Bard SummerScape, Seattle, Caramoor, West Cork, and Archipel.

Deeply committed to the chamber music repertoire, Gilles Vonsattel has been an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since the 2012-2013 season, and is a former member of Chamber Music Society Two. He has performed with the Seattle and Philadelphia chamber music societies, and has collaborated with artists such as Emmanuel Pahud, Jorg Widmann, Kim Kashkashian, Ida Kavafian, Cho-Liang Lin, Paul Neubauer, Jerome Lowenthal, David Shifrin, Heinz Holliger, Gary Hoffman, David Jolley, Carter Brey, and Yo-Yo Ma. He has performed with Trio Valtorna and the Borromeo, St. Petersburg, Pacifica, Ying, Orion, and Ebène quartets. He has given world premieres of works by Ned Rorem (Alice Tully Hall) and Nico Muhly (National Gallery of Art), and in recent seasons has performed the music of George Benjamin, Heinz Holliger, Jorg Widmann, Georges Aperghis, and John Harbison.

First prize winner at the 2006 Geneva International Music Competition, Gilles Vonsattel was a laureate of the 2009 Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, and is also a laureate of the Cleveland and Dublin piano competitions. He has been heard frequently on NPR’s Performance Today, Radio France Musique, CBC, ARD, and the BBC. Vonsattel’s recording of Liszt solo works and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with L’Orchestre de Chambre de Genève was released in 2007 on the Pan Classics label to critical acclaim. His recording of Bartók’s Contrasts on Deutsche Gramophone with members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is available for download on iTunes. His 2011 recording on the Honens/Naxos label of music of Debussy, Honegger, Holliger and Ravel was named one of Time Out New York’s classical albums of the year.

After studying with pianist David Deveau in Boston, Vonsattel received his B.A. in political science and economics from Columbia University and his M.M. from The Juilliard School, where he worked with Jerome Lowenthal. He is Assistant Professor of Piano at University of Massachusetts, Amherst.