Cédric Pescia

Cédric Pescia, pianist of dual French and Swiss nationality, was born in 1976. He studied with Christian Favre at the Conservatoire de Musique in Lausanne, later with Dominique Merlet at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva where he earned a Premier Prix de Virtuosité with honors and completed his studies with Klaus Hellwig at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.

In addition he has studied with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Daniel Barenboim, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Ivan Klansky, Christian Zacharias, Ilan Gronich and with the Alban Berg Quartet. From 2003 until 2006 he was invited to attend the famous International Piano Academy, Lake Como (Italy) where he worked with Dimitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, William Grant Naboré, Menahem Pressler, Andreas Staier and Fou Ts´ong.

Cédric Pescia was the brilliant First Prize Winner (Gold Medalist) at the 2002 Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition in Salt Lake City (USA).

Concert tours have taken him throughout Europe, South America, North Africa and in the USA. He has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Hamburg Musikhalle, the Mozarteum Salzburg, Carnegie Hall New York, Wigmore Hall London, Tonhalle Zürich and has appeared in leading music festivals such as: Prague Spring Festival, Lucerne Festival, Menuhin Festival-Gstaad, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Davos Festival, Festival de Radio France et Montpellier and Les Muséiques Basel.

His orchestral appearances have been with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, the Utah Symphony, the Festival Strings of Luzern, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, the Ensemble Oriol Berlin, the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn and the Camerata de Lausanne.

In addition to his activities as a soloist, his love for chamber music regularly leads to performances with other eminent musicians. For many years Cédric Pescia has been working in close collaboration with violinist Nurit Stark.

He is founding member and artistic director of the Lausanne chamber music series Ensemble enScène.

In 2005 and 2007 he served as a jury member in the Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey.

He is giving master classes in the USA and in Europe, a.o. at the prestigious Accademia Pianistica Internazionale "Incontri col Maestro" in Imola, Italy.

In 2007, Cédric Pescia was honoured with the Prix Musique de la Fondation Vaudoise pour la culture. He was a also a prizewinner at the Bourse de la Fondation Leenaards in Lausanne. He has performed for Live Music Now, Berlin, a non-profit organization founded by Yehudi Menuhin, since 2002.

The duo Nurit Stark (violin) and Cédric Pescia is supported by the Forberg-Schneider Foundation.

For Claves Records, he has recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations, Schumann's complete works for piano solo (vol. 2) and a CD of French music featuring Couperin, Messiaen and Debussy, F. Busoni's and G. Enescu's Violin and Piano Sonatas with Nurit Stark, as well as Beethoven's Piano sonatas op. 109, 110 and 111, five CDs which were unanimously acclaimed by the critics.