François Weigel is a pianist, conductor, and composer of French and German background.
He made his first public appearance as a pianist at the age of twelve in Germany in Mozart piano concerti. He began his musical education at the Musikhochschule of Cologne, then went on to the Paris Conservatoire where he studied piano, conducting, and composition. Among his teachers there was the eminent composer Olivier Messiaen.
After graduation, he continued to study in Vienna with Alexis Weissenberg. He entered the competition circuit, where he won the Jugend-Musiziert of Germany, and prizes from the Menuhin Foundation, the Claude Kahn Competition in Paris, and the Concorso Barcelona. He had five years of sponsorship from the Philip Morris Foundation.
His career is primarily directed towards his piano performances. As such, he appears most often as a pianist. He often conducts from the keyboard in his concerto performances and plays in chamber music, as a recital accompanist, and as a soloist. Among his most acclaimed solo performances are Chopin's Waltzes, Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies, and his own transcriptions from operas. He has played several recitals in Salle Gaveau of Paris, and appeared at the Reims Flâneries, Radio France, Biarritz, Marseilles, Festival Radio France Montpellier, Festival Auvers-sur-Oise, la Roque d'Anthéron, Salzburg, and Buenos Aires. Among his recital partners are soprano Inva Mula, violinist Sasha Rozhdestvensky, and his regular duo-piano partner Frederic Chiu.
On the concert stage, he has appeared with the Radio France Philharmonic under Marek Janowski, the Philharmonie of Belgrade with Emile Tabakov, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Montpellier with Enrique Diamecke, the Orchestre National de l'Isle de France with Jacques Mercier, and the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice conducted by Antoni Wit. With the latter he has performed the piano part in Messiaen's complex concerto-symphony Turangalilâ on the Naxos label.
He appears on radio regularly with the French stations ORTF and Radio France, and the Italian organization RAI. He played in Volker Schlöndorff's film Un Amour de Swann. Weigel as also has been named music director of the Legion d'Honneur.