Cédric Pescia was born in Lausanne and holds joint Swiss and French nationality. He studied at the Conservatoires of Lausanne (Christian Favre) and Geneva (Dominique Merlet), the Universität der Künste in Berlin (Klaus Hellwig) and the Lake Como International Piano Academy (Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, Andreas Staier, William Grant Naboré, Fou Ts’ong).
He also recieved advanced tuition from Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Henri Barda, Daniel Barenboim, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Irwin Gage, Christian Zacharias and the Alban Berg Quartet.
He won first prize at the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition 2002 in Salt Lake City, USA. He is a laureate of the Leenaards Foundation in Lausanne and has been awarded the Music Prize of the Fondation Vaudoise pour la Culture.
Cédric Pescia appears in recital and with orchestra in Europe, Asia, the USA and South America. His notable engagements have included the Philharmonie and Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Salzburg Mozarteum, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Shanghai Oriental Art Center, the Tonhalle in Zurich.
He is also a regular guest at prestigious festivals, including the Prague Spring Festival, Lucerne Festival, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Ruhr Piano Festival, Miami International Piano Festival, and the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier.
He enjoys a longstanding artistic partnership with the violinist Nurit Stark, the pianist Philippe Cassard, and the stage director and actor Omar Porras.
He is co-founder and artistic director of the Lausanne-based chamber music series Ensemble enScène. He is, along with Ophélie Gaillard, co-artistic director of the Ponticello association.
In 2012 he was appointed professor of piano at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva and he gives masterclasses worldwide.
He is President of the Artistic Committee of the Geneva International Competition.
His repertoire is extremely vast; contemporary music plays an important role in it.
For Claves Records, AEON, La Dolce Volta, BIS, Genuin and Neos he recorded works by Bach, Bloch, Couperin, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, Busoni, Enescu, Messiaen, Cage, Zanon, Suslin, Gubaidulina, and Juillerat. These CDs have received excellent reviews.