Swiss-born pianist Gilles Vonsattel, winner of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation's 2002 International Piano Competition, made his Lincoln Center debut that year at Alice Tully Hall, and has appeared as soloist with the Utah Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the National Symphony of Ireland, the Boston Pops, and the Orchestre de Chambre de Gen?ve. With repertoire that ranges from Bach's Art of the Fugue to Xenakis, Mr. Vonsattel is an artist of uncommon breadth equally at home in solo and chamber music. He has performed in major venues such as Boston's Symphony Hall, Cleveland's Severance Hall, Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, the Benedict Music Tent at the Aspen Music Festival, Tokyo's Opera City Hall, Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, and Geneva's Victoria Hall.
Mr. Vonsattel's 2007-08 season included recitals at La Roque d'Anthéron, at the Musée d'Orsay, the Davos Festival, Zürich's Tonhalle, at Warsaw's Chopin Festival, at the La Jolla Music Society, and at Atlanta's Spivey Hall, as well as concerto and solo performances in Prague, Bratislava, Basel, and Poznan. In 2008-09 Mr. Vonsattel appeared at the festivals of Bastad, Sion, and Ernen, returned to the Caramoor and Davos festivals, and performed Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Warsaw Philharmonic under Antoni Witt. He made numerous appearances at New York's Lincoln Center under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and toured Switzerland with the Musikkollegium Winterthur. He performed Elliott Carter's Night Fantasies at Lincoln Center and gave the world premiere of a work by Nico Muhly at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The 2009-10 season includes performances at Wigmore Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Caramoor, a recital tour of India, and concerto appearances with the Miami Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, and Gdansk Philharmonic.
The top prize winner at the 2006 Concours de Gen?ve, Mr. Vonsattel was most recently named a Laureate of the 2009 Honens International Piano Competition and holds prizes from the Cleveland and Dublin Piano Competitions. In 2008 he was a recipient of an Avery Fisher career grant. He has been heard frequently on National Public Radio's Performance Today, Radio France Musique, the BBC, and CBC Radio. He gave the world premiere of Ned Rorem's Sound Points at his second recital at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Recent chamber music appearances include debuts at the Musée du Louvre in Paris and at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He has performed at the Seattle and Philadelphia Chamber Music Societies, has appeared in recital at the Caramoor International Festival and joined the Caramoor Virtuosi in 2007. Deeply committed to the chamber music repertoire, he was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's prestigious Chamber Music Society Two residency for young artists, and has collaborated with artists such as Kim Kashkashian, Ida Kavafian, Cho-Liang Lin, Heinz Holliger, Paul Neubauer, David Shifrin, Gary Hoffman, Carter Brey, and Yo-Yo Ma.
Mr. Vonsattel has shown a significant interest in expanding the conventional classical concert experience, regularly participating in New York's Wordless Music Series. He was featured in the spring 2008 issue of Esquire magazine as one of several ground-breaking classical musicians. In the 2009-10 season he gives masterclasses at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Houston.
Mr. Vonsattel's recording of Liszt solo works and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 with L'Orchestre de Chambre de Gen?ve was released in October of 2007 on the PanClassics label to critical acclaim. His recording of Bartók's Contrasts (Deutsche Gramophon) with members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is available for download on iTunes.
After studying with pianist David Deveau in Boston, Mr. 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.