Lise de la Salle

Piano

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A career of already over 20 years, award-winning Naïve recordings, international concert appearances – Lise de la Salle has established herself as one of today’s exciting young artists and as a musician of real sensibility and maturity. Her playing inspired a Washington Post critic to write, “For much of the concert, the audience had to remember to breathe… the exhilaration didn’t let up for a second until her hands came off the keyboard.”

The 2024/25 season sees her debut with Sydney Symphony Orchestra and returns to Philharmonia Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestras under the baton of Fabio Luisi. Other recent highlights include major performances at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées with Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, a return to RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. She performs recitals in prestigious concert halls such as Shanghai Concert Hall, Sydney City Recital Hall and Paris Seine Musicale.

She has played with many leading orchestras across the globe: Chicago, Boston and Washington Symphony Orchestras, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony and London Symphony Orchestras, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Münchner Philharmoniker, Dresden Staatskapelle, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Della RAI, Rotterdam Philharmonic, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and NHK Symphony Orchestras, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra among many others. She collaborated with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Fabio Luisi, James Conlon, Gianandrea Noseda, Krzysztof Urbanski, Antonio Pappano, Rafael Payare, Karina Kanellakis, Lionel Bringuier, Thomas Søndergård, Fabien Gabel, Marek Janowski, Robin Ticciati, Osmö Vanska, James Gaffigan, Semyon Bychkov, and Dennis Russell Davies.

She performs in the world’s most esteemed concert halls – Vienna Musikverein, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Herkulessaal in Munich, Berlin Philharmonie, Tonhalle Zürich, Lucerne KKL, Bozar in Brussels, Wigmore and Royal Festival Halls, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Hollywood Bowl, and festivals – Klavier Festival Ruhr and Bad Kissingen, Verbier, La Roque d’Anthéron, Bucharest Enescu Festival, San Francisco Performances, Chicago Symphony recital series, Aspen and Ravinia Festivals.

She also takes pleasure in educational outreach and conducts master classes in many of the cities in which she performs.

Among her critically acclaimed Naïve CDs features an all-Chopin disc with a live recording of the Piano Concerto No.2 with Fabio Luisi conducting Staatskapelle Dresden. In 2011, He Liszt album received Diapason Magazine’s Diapason d’Or and Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice. Her latest album When do we Dance? (2021) presents an odyssey of dances through a whole century.

In 2004, Lise de la Salle won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York. She started the piano at age four and gave her first concert 5 years later in a live broadcast on Radio France. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire. She has worked closely with Pascal Nemirovski and was long-term advisee of Geneviève Joy-Dutilleux.

“de la Salle’s encore of the Bach-Busoni Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, [was] wallowing in rich harmonies, calmed nerves and soothed the soul.”

Backtrack, February 2023

“After the stunning NSO debut of Lise de la Salle in 2017, one expected exceptional pyrotechnics from the French pianist. She delivered that in the daring finale of Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, whirring through the reams of passagework as Urbański lightly daubed dabs of orchestral color around her. The folk music-inspired section shone in particular, accented by percussive col legno strings.”

(Washington Classical Review, 2019)