Louis Lortie
Louis Lortie
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BIOGRAPHY
Louis Lortie has earned an international reputation as a versatile musician critically acclaimed for the fresh perspective and individuality he brings to the grand masters of the piano repertoire. In demand on five continents for more than thirty years, Louis Lortie performs with the most prestigious orchestras and in major concert halls around the world. A prolific artist, he has produced more than 45 recordings for Chandos Records featuring the pillars of piano literature. He is followed by more than 300,000 listeners monthly on streaming platforms and generated more than six million streams in 2022.
In Great Britain, his long-standing relationship with the BBC, the BBC Symphony and BBC Philharmonic orchestras have resulted in numerous recordings and concerts as well than more than ten invitations at the BBC Proms. In his native Canada, for half a century, he has regularly played with all the major orchestras: Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Calgary. Close collaborator of Kurt Masur, he was a regular soloist with the Orchestre National de France and the Gewandhaus orchestra during his tenure as Music Director. He has also collaborated with the Deutsche Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, the Leipzig MDR Orchestra in Germany and in the United States, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, San Diego Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and New Jersey Symphony. Further afield, his collaborations include the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra where he was Artist in Residence, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, as well as the Adelaide and Sydney Symphony Orchestras and the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo in Brazil. Regular partnerships with conductors include, among others, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Edward Gardner, Sir Andrew Davis, Jaap Van Zweden, Simone Young, Antoni Wit and Thierry Fischer.
In recital and in chamber music, Louis Lortie regularly performs at Wigmore Hall in London, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Symphony Hall, the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Liszt Festival Raiding. He is particularly sought after for his performance of the complete “Years of Pilgrimage” of Liszt in one evening, the Etudes of Chopins (complete) in one evening, or his cycles of Beethoven sonatas; the latter filmed at the Salle Bourgie in Montreal and broadcast on Medici TV in 2021. For more than twenty years, with Hélène Mercier, the Lortie-Mercier duo has brought new perspectives on the repertoire for four hands and two pianos in concert as well as their numerous recordings.
His discography, exclusively for Chandos records, includes, in the solo piano repertoire, seven volumes of works by Chopin; Beethoven’s 32 sonatas; the complete works of Ravel; Liszt’s “Years of Pilgrimage”; and two volumes of works by Faure. With Edward Gardner he recorded Lutoslawksi’s “Concerto and Variations on a Theme of Paganini” with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, particularly praised by critics, as well as the complete concertos of Saint-Saens with the BBC Philharmonic and the Vaughan Williams concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Peter Oundjian.
Louis Lortie is co-founder and Artistic Director of the LacMus Festival, which has been held yearly since 2017 on Lake Como. He was master in residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Brussels from 2017 to 2022. Louis Lortie continues to mentor pianists of exceptional talent by introducing the new generation through concert cycles, recently a cycle of Beethoven/Liszt symphonies at Wigmore Hall and the Dresden International Festival as well as the Scriabin Marathon at the LacMus and Bolzano Bozen Festivals.
Louis Lortie made his debut with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra at the age of thirteen. In 1984, he won the first prize at the Busoni competition and fourth prize at the Leeds Competition. He studied with Yvonne Hubert (student of the legendary Alfred Cortot ), with Dieter Weber in Vienna, then with Leon Fleisher. Louis Lortie was honored with the title of “Officer of the Order of Canada” in 1992, and “Chevalier Ordre national du Québec” in 1997, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Laval the same year.
2024/2025
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