Pianist Adam Laloum has combined charisma and interpretive independence in his growing career. A virtuoso soloist, he is also a noted chamber player. Laloum is active as well as a festival administrator. He is a roster fixture on the Mirare label but has also recorded for other top imprints. Laloum was born in Toulouse on February 25, 1987, and took up the piano at age six. His teachers noticed his intensity, and he enrolled at the Conservatory of Toulouse for lessons with pianist Daniel Beau. Without asking permission, at the age of 12, Laloum auditioned at the National Conservatory of Paris and was accepted for studies with Michel Béroff. Beau was outraged, but the two later resumed speaking. Laloum attended the Maurice Ravel Academy and won a prize there in 2007. In 2009, Laloum won the Clara Haskil Competition, one of the world's most prestigious competition stages. Le Monde, reviewing his performances, observed that "he has that je ne sais quoi which captivates." That led to a contract with the Mirare label and to an album of Brahms piano pieces in 2011. From 2012 to 2019, he was part of the piano trio Les Esprits, with violinist Mi-Sa Yang and cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière. Laloum also established the chamber festival Les Pages Musicales de Lagrasse. A follow-up album featuring Schumann's Piano Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 11, and Humoreske in B flat major, Op. 20, appeared in 2013 and won the Diapason d'Or de l'Année and Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros awards, and an "ffff" (the highest rating) from the French magazine Télérama, which likened Laloum to Vladimir Horowitz and Claudio Arrau. Laloum joined with the similarly youthful clarinetist Raphaël Sévère for an album of Brahms works in 2014, and with Julien-Laferrière for cello sonatas by Brahms, Franck, and Debussy two years later. Those albums generated strong sales and commercial momentum, and Laloum began work on an album of Brahms piano concertos, his Sony Classical debut, released in 2018. In 2020, he moved to Harmonia Mundi for an album of Schubert piano sonatas, following that up with a new Brahms album for Harmonia Mundi in 2021. In 2023, he and Yang returned on the Mirare label with an album of violin-and-piano pieces, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Debussy. Laloum was active in both the solo and chamber music spheres in 2024, issuing a recording of Schubert's Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959, on Harmonia Mundi and joining the young Quatuor Hanson on the same label for a recording of Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44. ~ James Manheim, Rovi