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Pierre-Laurent Aimard (born 9 September 1957) is a French pianist. He was born in Lyon, where he entered the conservatory. Later he studied with Yvonne Loriod. In 1973, he was awarded the chamber music prize of the Paris Conservatoire. In the same year he won the first prize at the international Olivier Messiaen Competition. In 1977, at the invitation of Pierre Boulez, he became a founding member of the Ensemble InterContemporain. Aimard has collaborated with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Zubin Mehta, Charles Dutoit, André Previn, James Levine, Andrew Davis, David Robertson, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He made his American debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of twenty, performing the piano solo part in Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. Aimard is particularly committed to contemporary music. He was the soloist in several premieres of works such as Répons by Pierre Boulez, Klavierstück XIV by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and the eleventh and thirteenth piano études of György Ligeti. One of his most notable recordings is that of the first two books of Ligeti's piano études. He has also performed the work of contemporary composers such as George Benjamin and Marco Stroppa. Aimard was one of Carnegie Hall's "Perspectives" artists for the 2006-2007 concert season, where he programmed his own series of concerts. In addition to his work with contemporary music, Aimard has recorded the five Beethoven piano concertos with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, at the invitation of Harnoncourt. Aimard has recorded for the Sony Classical and Teldec labels. In August 2007, he signed a new recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Aimard has recently extended his musical activities to conducting, although he characterized his interest and gift for conducting as follows: "To be clear: I am not a conductor, and I will never be one. This is not my way of life, and I have nothing to do with that, and have no talent for that. But if you want me to give a definition to what I do, I wouldn't say I'm a pianist - I'm a musician, and the piano happens to be my instrument. I don't like to have one function, to give me just one perspective on music. I like to make chamber music, to be part of a group, to play song accompaniments, to teach, to speak about music. In other words, to live the phenomenon on different sides." In 2009, Aimard is scheduled to become the next Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival in England, for an initial contract of 3 years. In May 2008, Aimard withdrew from performances with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra on doctor's orders, due to "back strain." On 16th December 2009, Aimard received the honorary certificate of the german 'record criticism' group at Konzerthaus Dortmund during his Frederic Chopin-centric Concert. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.