Nicolas Horvath

Nicolas Horvath is a pianist who could truly be described as a pioneer. Always one step ahead of a repertoire, an artistic gesture, or an emerging scene, he has spent more than a decade exploring musical territories long before they became widely recognized. An interpreter of all the music of Philip Glass before the composer entered the standard repertoire, a rediscoverer of long-overlooked women composers, and the initiator of the first “Philip Glass Nights” and “Erik Satie Nights” at the Philharmonie de Paris, he has forged a singular, independent, and deeply committed artistic path.
Born in Monaco, he encountered the piano at the age of three. The instrument has never left him since. Trained at the Monaco Music Academy, he was noticed by conductor Lawrence Foster, who opened the doors of the Aspen Music Festival and School in the United States to him. This experience confirmed his vocation. After settling in Paris, he continued his studies at the École Normale de Musique, then with Bruno Leonardo Gelber, while simultaneously developing a strong attraction toward unconventional artistic paths.
Indeed, Nicolas Horvath has never confined himself to established frameworks. He became involved in the Paris experimental scene, performed in metal bands such as Hell Militia, Nyseius and Tenebrare, founded the dark ambient project Dapnom, and studied electroacoustic music. From this immersion emerged a lasting conviction: to defend living creation and bring invisible works to light. Very early on, he made it a rule to include a significant proportion of contemporary music in every concert he performs.
His artistic commitment has led him to collaborate with major figures of contemporary creation such as Terry Riley, Alvin Lucier, Alvin Curran, Mamoru Fujieda, Jaan Rääts, and Valentyn Silvestrov, while also engaging with artistic worlds as diverse as those of Danny Elfman and Vladimir Cosma. These encounters have shaped an open artistic vision, free from stylistic boundaries.
An explorer at the piano, he breaks down aesthetic barriers and creates recitals in which Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt converse with pop culture, film music, and video game music. A pioneer in this field, he was among the first classical pianists to bring these repertoires to major concert halls. Ubisoft invited him to record the official piano arrangements of the Assassin’s Creed series, later presented notably at the Philharmonie de Paris. His albums devoted to the music of Studio Ghibli, as well as his collaborations with Alcest, Lustmord, Merzbow, Mortiis, Brigitte Lecordier, Alex Vizorek, and Tarja Turunen, reflect his constant desire to connect artistic worlds. Praised by the press, his discography has now accumulated more than 70 million streams on Spotify.
In 2021, he founded his own label, Nicolas Horvath Discoveries, dedicated to today’s composers. As host of the radio program Musiques Actuelles on Fréquence Protestante, he simultaneously continues to record ambitious projects, including the complete 365 chorales of Johann Sebastian Bach and Chasing Satie by Terry Riley, a cycle written especially for him.
An insatiable artist, Nicolas Horvath follows a singular path: that of a musician for whom exploration, transmission, and storytelling remain inseparable.