For over three decades, French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has performed world-wide, building a reputation as one of the world’s most versatile pianists. He extends his interpretative voice across a broad spectrum of repertoire, and his performances and award-winning recordings attest to his remarkable musical range. 

In recital and chamber music, Louis Lortie appears in the world’s most prestigious concert halls and festivals, including London’s Wigmore Hall, the Philharmonie de Paris, Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Hall, the Beethovenfest Bonn, and Liszt Festival Raiding. Recent special projects have included performances of Liszt’ complete Années de Pèlerinage in one evening and a complete Beethoven sonata cycle filmed at Salle Bourgie in Montreal, and broadcast on Medici TV in 2021. 

Together with fellow pianist Hélène Mercier, as the Lortie-Mercier duo, he has also shed new light on the repertoire for four hands and two pianos both in the concert hall and on several best-selling recordings.  

Louis Lortie is co-founder and Artistic Director of the LacMus International Festival on Lake Como and a Master in Residence at The Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel of Brussels. During his formative years in Montreal, Louis Lortie studied with Yvonne Hubert (a pupil of the legendary Alfred Cortot), later in Vienna with Beethoven specialist Dieter Weber, and subsequently with Schnabel disciple Leon Fleisher. In 1984 Lortie won First Prize in the Busoni Competition and the same year he was a prize-winner at the Leeds Competition.