Francesco Tristano

Francesco Tristano leads a multifaceted career as a pianist, composer and producer, delving into classical and electronic music. As a classical artist, he is associated with Baroque music, especially J.S. Bach, as well as Buxtehude and Frescobaldi. Tristano is equally at home in contemporary and avant-garde music, performing the works of Luciano Berio, John Cage and Igor Stravinsky in addition to his own compositions. Tristano signed with iconic label Deutsche Grammophon in 2011 and released three albums: BachCage, Long Walk (Bach/Buxtehude/Tristano, 2012), Scandale (Stravinsky/Ravel/Tristano, 2014), with German pianist Alice Sara Ott. He’s also a worldwide acclaimed electronic music producer and performer, as he began working with Berlin-based techno label Get Physical Music in 2014, then with Detroit-based label Transmat, which included his acclaimed rework of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. Tristano arranged, orchestrated and performed on Carl Craig’s album Versus (2017), which featured Les Siècles Orchestra conducted by François-Xavier Roth. In 2016, he launched a new audiovisual show Goldberg City Variations at Köthener Bachfesttage based on the ‘Cosmic City’ (by Iannis Xenakis), a future urban redevelopment is fuelled by the 20.000+ pitches that constitute Bach’s Goldberg Variations and grows in real time via a video projection. 2017 marked the 85th birth anniversary of Glenn Gould. Tristano was part of a series of special exhibitions and concerts curated by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Glenn Gould Gathering took place at Sogetsu Hall Tokyo, and was highlighted with a tribute concert titled Glenn Gould – Remodels, which turned into a live album. Tristano made his Sony Classical debut with Piano Circle Songs (2017), which included collaborations with Chilly Gonzales. Tokyo Stories (2019) acted as a tonal love letter to its namesake city. His latest release Tristano plays Gulda was released to commemorate the artist’s 20th death anniversary in January 2020. In 2018/19 he collaborated with Japanese company Yamaha to create the first performance algorithm of Glenn Gould Artificial Intelligence, premiered in 2019 at Linz’ Ars Nova festival to great critical acclaim. Concert highlights include solo and orchestra performances at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, L’auditori Barcelona, Le Poisson Rouge NYC & LSO St Luke’s London. In 2020 he was awarded the Opus Klassik in the category Classical without frontiers for his album Tokyo Stories.