Jean-Yves Thibaudet

Among his collaborators in performances and recordings are soprano Renée Fleming, mezzo-sopranos Cecilia Bartoli and Angelika Kirchschlager, violist Yuri Bashmet, violinists Joshua Bell, Midori and Julia Fischer, cellists Truls Mørk, Daniel Müller-Schott, and Gautier Capuçon, and the Rossetti String Quartet. He also commissioned a piano concerto from James MacMillan, which he premiered with the Minnesota Orchestra in 2011. Thibaudet performed Gershwin’s Concerto in F as the guest soloist of the National Youth Orchestra of the USA on its 2018 Asia tour.

Thibaudet has performed with most of the world's leading symphonic orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Orchestre National de France. He has also performed in the concert halls of Europe and North America and is fond of travelling to Australia where he has a strong fan base. He was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in 2010. Thibaudet was named Artist-in-Residence for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra during the 2019/20 season to coincide with Stéphane Denève's first season as Music Director. Thibaudet's virtuosity is such that he even impressed the great Vladimir Horowitz, who called a performance he heard on the radio of Thibaudet playing Liszt "amazing".

Thibaudet's concert attire is designed by Vivienne Westwood; he first asked her to design an outfit for his appearance at the London Proms in 2002.

In 2001, Thibaudet was appointed a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and in 2012 he was promoted to the grade of Officier.

He is well known for his interpretations of French classical music but has also made forays into the world of jazz, playing arrangements and transcriptions of improvisations on the CDs Conversations with Bill Evans (1997) and Reflections on Duke (1999).

Thibaudet is also known for his recordings of opera transcriptions. In 1993, he recorded arrangements of extracts from operas by Franz Liszt and Busoni. In 2007, Thibaudet released a CD entitled Aria: Opera Without Words, in which he selected several of his favorite arias and overtures, including some of his own transcriptions and those of Yvar Mikhashoff. He has since recorded a disc of Piano Concertos Nos 2 and 5 by Camille Saint-Saëns (with Dutoit and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, released in October 2007), and a disc of Gershwin works for piano and orchestra in Grofé's arrangements (released March 2010).

Jean-Yves Thibaudet (born 7 September 1961) is a French pianist.

Thibaudet has made more than 50 recordings, most for the British label Decca Records. His made a box set of all of Erik Satie's complete works for solo piano, released on the composer's 150th birthday.