Louis Schwizgebel: The privilege to be on stage

When Louis Schwizgebel is six years old, a friend of him plays Beethoven’s “Für Elise” on the piano at a birthday party. He is so fascinated by this piece that he decides to start playing the piano himself. To this day, that very enthusiasm marks the beginning of each of Schwitzgebel’s musical works

Nowadays the young artist has become a piano virtuoso who has already performed on the stages of several great concert halls. Representing a new generation of concert pianists, the 30-year-old Swiss inspires a worldwide audience with his multifaceted and sensitive style of playing. As an exceptionally gifted artist, he has worked together with numerous renowned orchestras. His interpretations of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos 1 & 2 together with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Saint-Saël’s Piano Concertos 2 & 5 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra appealed to both audience and critics.

In October 2017, he made his debut with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Exeter’s Great Hall. This is where Yamaha Music Europe met the pianist for an exclusive interview. He talks about his access to the music, his motivation and about the privilege to be on stage. “The piano is really an amazing instrument” the artist says. “I really appreciate Yamaha, especially the great CFX concert grand piano. It’s pretty good to control the very soft dynamics (…) that’s why we call it the ‘Schubert’”.

Louis Schwizgebel was born in 1987 in Geneva as the son of a Swiss animated film director and a Chinese mother. At the age of six he started to take piano lessons in his parent’s house. He studied piano with Brigitte Meyer in Lausanne as well as Pascal Devoyon in Berlin, later he became a student of Emanuel Ax in New York and Pascal Nemirovsky in London. At the age of 17, Schwizgebel won the Geneva International Music Competition, in 2007 he won first price at Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York, 2012 he was second at Leeds International Piano Competition. Between 2013 and 2015 Louis Schwizgebel was part of BBC’s New Generation Artists program. At just 30 years of age, the Swiss has already performed with several prestigious orchestras such as London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker or Orchestre National de Lyon. He also played famous festivals like Progetto Martha Argerich, Verbier Festival as well as Lucerne Festival.