Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, the winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions, and a laureate of the Cleveland, Dublin, and Honens competitions. He’s performed with the Munich Philharmonic, the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, and the Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, and San Francisco symphony orchestras, and he's appeared in recitals and chamber music concerts at Chamber Music Northwest; Music@Menlo; the Ravinia, Lucerne, Bravo! Vail Music, and Santa Fe Chamber Music festivals; Tokyo’s Musashino Hall; and London’s Wigmore Hall.

Vonsattel has premiered numerous works in the United States and Europe, and he’s worked closely with such notable composers as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, Anthony Cheung, and George Benjamin. Recent highlights include a performance of Carlos Chávez's Piano Concerto in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium with The Orchestra Now, a debut at Mainly Mozart in San Diego, a critically acclaimed recording of music by Richard Strauss and Kurt Leimer with The Bern Symphony Orchestra and Mario Venzago for the Schweizer Fonogramm label. In 2025, Vonsattel begins a three year complete Beethoven piano sonatas cycle for Camerata Pacifica, where he is principal pianist.  He will perform the entire cycle over the 2026-7 season for both Music@Menlo and at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Gilles Vonsattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School. He's a professor of piano at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He makes his home in New York City and western MA.

photo credit: Marco Boggreve