Pierre-Laurent Aimard (born 9 September 1957) is a French pianist. He was born in Lyon, where he entered the conservatory. Later he studied with Yvonne Loriod. He also studied with Maria Curcio who was a pupil of Artur Schnabel.

In 1973, he was awarded the chamber music prize of the Paris Conservatoire. In the same year, he won the first prize at the international Olivier Messiaen Competition. In 1977, at the invitation of Pierre Boulez, he became a founding member of the Ensemble InterContemporain.

Aimard has collaborated with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Zubin Mehta, Charles Dutoit, André Previn, James Levine, Andrew Davis, David Robertson, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He made his American debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of twenty, performing the piano solo part in Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie.

Aimard is particularly committed to contemporary music. He was the soloist in several premieres of works such as Répons by Pierre Boulez, Klavierstück XIV by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and the eleventh and thirteenth piano études of György Ligeti. One of his most notable recordings is that of the first two books of Ligeti's piano études. He has also performed the work of contemporary composers such as George Benjamin and Marco Stroppa. Aimard was one of Carnegie Hall's "Perspectives" artists for the 2006-2007 concert season, where he programmed his own series of concerts.He served as artist-in-residence with the Cleveland Orchestra for two seasons, from 2007 to 2009.

In addition to his work with contemporary music, Aimard has recorded the five Beethoven piano concertos with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe,[6] at the invitation of Harnoncourt. Aimard has recorded for the Sony Classical and Teldec labels. In August 2007, he signed a new recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon.