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.

Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. He is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions.  Vonsattel made his Boston Symphony (Tanglewood) and San Francisco Symphony debuts, and subsequently performed recitals and chamber music at Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Music@Menlo, the Gilmore Festival, the Lucerne Festival, and the Munich Gasteig. His New York solo recital was hailed as “tightly conceived and passionately performed…a study in intensity” by The New York Times. 

The 2021-22 season brings Mr. Vonsattel in performance with Camerata Pacifica, South Carolina Philharmonic, Arizona Friends of Music, the Orchestra Now at Carnegie Hall and Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall in New York City. His recent orchestral engagement highlights include Chicago Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Huntsville Symphony, South Carolina Philharmonic, Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Montreal Symphony (Canada), Staatorchester Hamburg (Germany), Gothenburg Symphony (Sweden) and Bern Symphony Orchestra (Switzerland).

Mr. Vonsattel has additionally performed with the Spoleto Festival USA, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival, SummerFest La Jolla, Classical Tahoe Festival, Swiss Chamber Concerts, Zeughaus Konzerte, at Schwetzinger Festspiele and in Memmingen (Germany). In collaborative recitals he performed with cellist Adolfo Gutierrez Arenas at Theatro Liceo (Spain) and Paul Watkins at the Maestro Foundation in Santa Monica. He also tours extensively with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center internationally in venues such as Alice Tully Hall in New York and Wigmore Hall in London.

Other recent projects include Bernstsein’s “Age of Anxiety” with the Munich Philharmonic and Kent Nagano, Berg’s Kammerkonzert with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, a tour with Jörg Widmann and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Mozart concerti with the Vancouver Symphony and Florida Orchestra, and performances at Seoul’s LG Arts Centre and at the Beijing Modern Music Festival.

In 2021, Mr. Vonsattel released a recording of Strauss’s Panathenäenzug and Leimer’s Piano Concerto (Left-Hand), the first recording of this piece released in nearly seventy years. Mr. Vonsattel’s 2015 release, titled Shadowlines, includes the music of Scarlatti, Webern, Messiaen, Debussy, and George Benjamin (whose composition gives the collection its title) received great acclaim, with The New York Times calling it a “mesmerizing” album in which Vonsattel traced an “intelligent and imaginative path” throughout. A 2014 release, Heinz Holliger: Romancendres…, with cellist Daniel Haefliger, on GENUIN/Artist Consort received a 5/5 from FonoForum and international critical praise, while his 2011 recording for the Honens/Naxos label of music by Debussy, Honegger, Holliger, and Ravel was named one of Time Out New York’s classical albums of the year.

He has made guest appearances with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, l’Orchestre Symphonique du Québec, Boston Pops, Nashville Symphony, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Staatskapelle Halle, and L’orchestre de chambre de Genève and has been reengaged by the San Francisco Symphony. Chamber partners include such luminaries as James Ehnes, Frank Huang, Nicolas Altstaedt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Stefan Jackiw, Jörg Widmann, Gary Hoffman, Carter Brey, Anthony Marwood, Paul Neubauer, Paul Watkins, Phil Setzer, Emmanuel Pahud, Karen Gomyo, David Jolley, Ida Kavafian, and the Swiss Chamber Soloists. He has appeared in concert with the Pacifica, Orion, Ebène, Danish, Daedalus, Escher, and Borromeo Quartets. Committed to contemporary works, Vonsattel has performed in numerous premieres in the United States and Europe, and has worked closely with notable composers such as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, and George Benjamin. With Violinst Frank Huang and cellist David Requiro, Mr. Vonsattel performs as the Naumburg Trio. With Violinst Ida Kavafian and Horn player David Jolley, he performs as Trio Valtorna.

A former member of CMS Two, Mr. Vonsattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School. He is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Gilles Vonsattel is a Steinway Artist.