“A brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary” – Wall Street Journal

“To listen to Aimard in action is to feel the gears of a composition mesh in new ways. It’s to hear the urgency and beauty in music that might otherwise sound grating or remote.” – San Francisco Chronicle

Pierre-Laurent Aimard is one of the key figures in the music of our time, a true giant of piano music. His visionary concert programmes often combine music from different eras. In this way, he brings familiar works to the public's ears in a new way and succeeds in bringing to life, in an extraordinary way, rarely heard treasures of the piano literature. His playing is characterised by a delicate, sonorous and supremely controlled touch, a sparkling expressiveness and a keen musical intelligence.

Aimard has influenced the piano music of our time perhaps more than any other performer. He was one of the founders of the groundbreaking Ensemble Intercontemporain, and has collaborated with Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen and many other great composers.  On the other hand, his numerous recordings of older music, including works by J.S. Bach, Franz Liszt and Claude Debussy, have also achieved great success.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard has put together his Mänttä programme inspired by the composer Arnold Schoenberg, who was born 150 years ago this year. Aimard presents the various dimensions of the composer by mirroring his works in the music of Brahms, Schumann, Scriabin and others.

Artistic Director of the Mänttä Music Festival Niklas Pokki introduces the concert in the Kivijärvi Hall at 18:00 (in Finnish). The concert ends approximately at 20:25.