Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who studied with Yvonne Loriod and worked with Olivier Messiaen and György Kurtág, was chosen by Pierre Boulez to become the pianist of the Ensemble Intercontemporain when he was just 19.
With such a background Aimard was naturally considered a contemporary music specialist, but he always liked to confront older music with modern works, and to share insight on the music, talking to audiences about the pieces before playing them.
Over the last 2 decades, he has kept on recording and playing contemporary music (Elliott Carter, Ligeti, Messiaen, George Benjamin…) as well as the modern masters (Debussy, Ravel, Berg, Bartók, Liszt…), and baroque or classical music by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, occasionally extending his musical activities to conducting.