Born in 1959 to Venetian parents living in Lyon, Roger Muraro began studying the saxophone there before teaching himself to play the piano. At 19, he enrolled in Yvonne Loriod’s class at the Paris Conservatoire and met Olivier Messiaen. He quickly established himself as one of the French composer’s major interpreters and, in 2001, released a recording to the complete solo piano music (7 CDs, Accord-Universal Music), which was greeted with unanimous rave reviews. His performance of Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus (without a score!) or else the monument that is the Catalogue d’oiseaux was considered not only a near-impossible wager but also an intimate appropriation of the oeuvre of Messiaen with whom he identifies totally.

Endowed with dazzling technique – he was a winner of the Tchaikovsky (Moscow) and Liszt (Parma) international competitions -, his playing is always at the service of poetry and sincerity. His art, simultaneously dreamlike and lucid, imaginative and rigorous, applies just as fully to Mussorgsky, Ravel, Albeniz, Rachmaninov or Debussy, as to Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt or Schumann, knowing how to bring out the emotion, the colours, the Romanticism and the sound atmospheres.

In February 2001, in Nantes, he received a ‘Victoire de la Musique’ award in the Solo Instrument category. From that time, he made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Myung-Whun Chung, as well as with the Orchestre de Paris under the direction of Yutaka Sado. In December 2003, he performed Ravel’s complete music for solo piano in Paris. Appearing in recital in the world’s most prestigious venues, he also collaborates with renowned conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Pinchas Steinberg, Marek Janowski, Valery Gergiev and Kent Nagano, and is invited by the finest orchestras (Berlin, Vienna and London Philharmonics, Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Russian National Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Munich Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest of The Hague…). In 2005, he was engaged by the Salzburg Festival to play Messian’s Turangalîla-Symphonie and participated as soloist with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the Proms in London.

Eclectic, open to a musical world without borders, Roger Muraro has recorded a rich discography for Accord. His last album, entitled Regards sur le XX^e siècle, was named a ‘Choc’ of Le Monde de la Musique; in it, he proposes a broad selection of piano creation of our time, convoking Bartók, Boulez, Dutilleux, Ives, Jolas, Messiaen, Schoenberg and Tremblay in a tribute to Claude Helffer who did so much for disseminating contemporary music.

In January 2011, DECCA has released his recording of the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz in the transcription for piano solo by Liszt and in November 2011, has been released by Deutsche Grammophon his recording of the Concerto in G Major by Ravel with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Myung-Whun Chung followed a few months later by the Concerto for the left hand, still with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Myung-Whun Chung.

New recording, a CD dedicated to Liszt including among other the Sonata in B minor as well as transcriptions of works by Wagner and which will be released by the French label La dolce Volta in the last months of 2015.

After having taught in Lyon, he henceforth shares his experience as a pianist and his teacher’s knowledge with students at the Paris Conservatoire who, like audiences round the world, appreciate the generosity of his musical discourse and the emotion given off by his interpretations, which are always marked with intelligence and sensitivity. Indeed, Roger Muraro’s altruism adds that supplement of soul inherited from Yves Nat and Alfred Cortot, romantic keyboard masters to whom he feels artistically close.