Born in 1989 with Swiss, French, and Chinese origins, pianist François-Xavier Poizat graduated from the Geneva and Hamburg Conservatory, from the Juilliard School in New York and from the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome with the teaching of Alexeï Golovin, Evgeni Koroliov and Benedetto Lupo. It is Martha Argerich who propelled him on the international stage by inviting him when he was 12 years old to the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. This marked the beginning of a career that has brought him to perform in already 28 countries in venues like the Victoria Hall in Geneva, the Tonhalle in Zürich, the Konzerthaus and Philharmonie in Berlin, the Seoul Art Center, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory or the Carnegie Hall in New York. He has won prizes in significant competitions including the 2007 Young Soloist Prizes from the Radios Francophones Publiques, the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the 2013 Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey. Beside his activity as a performer, he is currently the director of the Geneva Puplinge Classique Festival for the past 13 years and has recorded 5 CDs with the Naxos, Ars Produktion and Piano Classics labels. He and regularly recharges himself by playing jazz and practicing martial arts for 20 years.