Francesco Tristano

Piano / Composer

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“Francesco Tristano had rhythmic bite and color galore, while bringing engaging impetuosity to the music.”
The New York Times

“Music is music”. This is what Alban Berg responded to George Gershwin in Paris during the spring of 1928, as to why there was no distinction between what we consider “educated” music and “popular” music. Francesco Tristano has endorsed this quote over the last decade with his work; combining piano and synthesizer, between the scores of Johann Sebastian Bach – and also Frescobaldi, Berio, Buxtehude, Stravinsky, and Gershwin, among others – and the latest production and sequencing tools.

Francesco Tristano is an artist of many talents: pianist, composer, electronic and jazz musician, combining eras, genres and styles in his music. Francesco has become a key reference in a new movement which explores the creative intersection between classical and electronic music, homogenising it in a natural way which unites audiences from various worlds into his own universe. Tristano has collaborates with world renowned names in different genres including Derrick May, Carl Craig and Michel Portal to name a few.

Born in 1981, Tristano discovered the piano at the age of five and studied at New York’s Juilliard School for five years. It was in New York that he started to work with electronic and club music as well as completing a master class with Rosalyn Tureck. In 2004, he won the first prize at the International piano competition for contemporary music in Orléans, France. After recent successes such as ‘A Soft Shell Groove’, Tristano continues to present new compositions regularly.

Recording On early music — Francesco Tristano live at La Scala Paris © La Scala Paris

Concert highlights include solo performances at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Concertgebouw, L’auditori Barcelona & Le Poisson Rouge. He recently recorded his latest album, On early Music, in a live streamed concert with La Scala Paris in 2021. He performed his uniquely constructed concept piano 2.0 at LSO St Luke’s, as well as performances with Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National du Strasbourg and Sibiu Philharmonic, as part of the Enescu Festival. The season 2020/21 will see Tristano performing at Resonanzen Festival, Festival de Musique Sacrée de Perpignan as well as with Hong Kong Philharmonic (premiering his new concerto Tokyo Stories: A suite for piano and orchestra with conductor Rumon Gamba).

Tristano regularly works with a number of important orchestras including the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig (with Kristjan Järvi), Orchestre National de Lille, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, BBC Concert Orchestra, Szczecin Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and Spanish National Orchestra and Choir.

Tristano has a growing discography including recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and complete keyboard concertos, Luciano Berio’s complete piano works, and Girolamo Frescobaldi’s Toccatas. His album ‘Idiosynkrasia’ (inFine, 2010), recorded at Carl Craig’s Planet E‑communications in Detroit, was released to critical acclaim; Tristano accomplished the synthesis of digital virtuosity and rare electronic textures, which he now calls ‘piano2.0’. On Deutsche Grammophon he released ‘BachCage’, produced by Moritz von Oswald, in 2011, ‘The Long Walk’ (Buxehetude/Bach/Tristano) in 2012, and ‘Scandale’ with Alice Sara Ott. Tristano is a Sony Classics artist, releasing ‘Piano Circle Songs’ featuring Chilly Gonzales in September 2017, and ‘Tokyo Stories’ in May 2019, both to critical acclaim.

Gallery

Francesco Tristano - Grey Light (Official Video) © FTristanoVEVO

Francesco Tristano - Tristano Plays Gulda: Prelude & Fugue (Official Video) © Sony Classical

Francesco Tristano & Alice Sara Ott: Scandale - Promotional Trailer © Deutsche Grammophon

Francesco Tristano - Piano Circle Songs

Francesco Tristano - Acoustic Piano and Electro © Orchestre national de Lille

Francesco Tristano: Ground Bass © Deutsche Grammophon

Francesco Tristano: Dietrich Buxtehude - Canzona Bux WV 168 © Deutsche Grammophon

goldberg city variations © Francesco Tristano

FT w/Moritz von Oswald & hr-Sinfonieorchester playing 'UrSprung' @ Music Discovery Project © Francesco Tristano

“His artistic approach (…) combined with a classical training (eminently baroque) and knowledge about electronics and techno, make him a guru of the musical panorama of our days”

(Bachtrack, June 2020)

“I like that he doesn’t stand still, that he scatters himself generously across jazz, classical and techno, almost nerdy, but always curious and alive.”
A “precise, floral art on piano and electronics”

(Berliner Zeitung, April 2019)

“his impassioned, uninterrupted sequence [of Cage’s pieces performed with command and resonance] ended with one of his
own Piano Circle Songs — a hypnotic circulation of arpeggios that was distinctly happiness-inducing”

(The Times, May 2018)

“The piece ‘Hello’ marks the musical field in which Tristano operates. The 34 year old pianist from Luxembourg is a figure of hope who aims to inject his audience, a dwindling species of concertgoers interested in classical music, with fresh blood.”

Frankfurter Rundschau, March 2016

“Francesco Tristano’s “free” improvised Piano Concerto was a brilliantly received example of how classical music is able to excite audiences today. Standing ovations.”

Leipziger Volkszeitung, March 2016

“[The programme] … opened and closed with Ravel – Tristano’s own, very skilful, very witty two-piano version of Boléro, which drives to its climax in a wild torrent of clusters and glissandi, and the composer’s own arrangement of La Valse..” ****

The Guardian, June 2015

“Tristano’s impressively assured survey of Berio’s piano music ends with an important first recording: that of the Piano Sonata, which was completed in 2001, two years before the composer’s death”

The Guardian

“Francesco Tristano opens new paths into Classical Music…”

El País

“The rising young pianist Francesco Tristano played the formidable solo part brilliantly. He had rhythmic bite and color galore, while bringing engaging impetuosity to the music.”

The New York Times