In just a few years, through her international concert appearances and her award-winning Naive recordings, 22 year-old Lise de la Salle has established a presence as one of today's most exciting young artists and a musician of uncommon 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.”

A native of France, now living in Paris, Ms. de la Salle first came to international attention in 2005, at the age of 16, with a Bach/Liszt recording that was selected as "Recording of the Month" by Gramophone Magazine.  She was similarly recognized in 2008 for her Naive recording of first concertos of Liszt, Prokofiev and Shostakovich – a remarkable feat for someone only 20 years old.  This season brings the release of Ms. de la Salle’s fifth CD - a Chopin disc including a live recording of the Piano Concerto 2, opus 2 with Fabio Luisi conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden as well as the Four Ballades.

 

In this country she has played with the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival, San Francisco Symphony, twice with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and she will make her second appearance with the Minnesota Orchestra in the Gershwin Concerto in F this season. During the past few seasons, Ms. de la Salle’s North American appearances included recitals in New York, Montreal, San Francisco, Vancouver, Quebec, St. Paul, at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Duke University and in Miami, among others. In April 2006, Ms. de la Salle made her Lincoln Center debut, performing Liszt’s Concerto No. 1 with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Keith Lockhart.  She has also been heard in Berlin, London and Paris and made concerto appearances in Lisbon, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg, and Lyon.

Lise de la Salle’s 2010-11 season opens with a performance of Rachmaninov Paganini variations with the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich and Simon Gaudenz.  Additional orchestral highlights include Beethoven 3 with Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and the Dresdner Philharmoniker; a return to the Minnesota Orchestra under the baton of Osmo Vanska, who engaged her for three consecutive seasons; debut performances with Colorado Symphony and Peter Oundjian and the Quebec Symphony with Yoav Talmi.  She closes the season performing Mozart’s Jeunehomme with Lorin Maazel and the London Philharmonia.  Recitals in Vienna’s Konzerthaus, the Paris Theatre des Champs Elysée, Hamburg’s Ladiszhalle, Chicago’s Mandel Hall, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Ansbach Bach Week, among others, will feature works by Bach, Liszt, Chopin, and Schumann.  As a Young Concert Artists alumna, she will join the organization’s 50th anniversary musical marathon celebration at Symphony Space.

Lise de la Salle’s 2009-2010 season included her debut with the Boston Symphony led by Fabio Luisi; her first subscription concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic with James Conlon, with whom she also appeared to enthusiastic audiences at the Aspen and Ravinia Festivals; as well as her debut in the fabled Musikverein with the Vienna Symphony.  In this and recent seasons, Ms. de la Salle's appearances included recitals in Paris, London (Wigmore Hall), Lucerne Festival Piano Series, Stuttgart, Copenhagen, Luxemburg, Salzburg and the Verbier Festival.  Other engagements included the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Stuttgart Radio Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

She records exclusively for the Naïve label.  Ms. de la Salle was also the subject of a multi-page feature in Vanity Fair Germany where they said, “An extremely personal beauty emanated from the pieces that she played.  Lise de la Salle articulated all the voices with wonderful clarity and variety of expression.”

Ms. de la Salle won the 2003 European Young Concert Artists Auditions in Paris and the 2004 Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York.  The organization presented her in her New York and Washington, DC debuts in October 2004.  In 2000, Ms. de la Salle won First Prize and the Bärenreiter Award at the Ettlingen International Competition in Germany.  She has won First Prize in many French piano competitions, including the Steinway, Sucy, Vulaines, and Radio-France Competitions. In 2003, she won the “Groupe Banque Populaire Natexis” Prize, for which she received a three-year scholarship.

Born in Cherbourg, France in 1988, Ms. de la Salle was surrounded by music from her earliest childhood.  She began studying the piano at the age of four and gave her first concert at nine in a live broadcast on Radio-France.  At 13, she made her concerto debut with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in Avignon, and her Paris recital debut at the Louvre before going on tour with the Orchestre National d’Ile de France playing Haydn’s Concerto in D Major.

After receiving special permission to enter the Paris Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique studying with Pierre Réach, at the age of eleven, Ms. de la Salle graduated in 2001 and subsequently enrolled in the postgraduate cycle with Bruno Rigutto. She has worked closely with Pascal Nemirovski since 1997 and also studied with Genevieve Joy-Dutilleux.