Jean-Philippe RIOPY had a difficult upbringing, during which the piano was his lifeline. An entirely self-taught player, he left his home country at 18 years old to try his luck abroad. RIOPY had one goal: to make a living from his music. After ten years of travels and many fateful encounters, such as with Chris Martin who gave him a piano, he settled in London and began to compose for cinema. Despite this success in his life and career, he still faced the struggle of chronic depression. This vulnerability emerged in the music of his first two albums, RIOPY and Tree of Light in 2018 and 2019 with Warner Classics. In 2020, RIOPY returned to France for a few months, marking the beginning of a peaceful era, and released BLISS, thereby closing a musical trilogy.

In January 2022, he ranked #1 on the Billboard Classical Charts for three consecutive weeks, and his career took on a new dimension: he began a French tour that quickly became European. In ten months, RIOPY played for sold-out audiences in five Paris venues and performed across Europe in London, Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Montreux, and soon again in the UK for a twelve-city tour. In December, he travelled across the Atlantic to perform in Montreal, San Francisco, and two sold-out concerts in New York and Los Angeles.

The year 2023 has begun with a stable position in the top 10 of the Billboard Classical Charts for 120 weeks, a cumulative 600 million streams, a feature on Lana del Rey’s forthcoming album, and his fourth album on April 14: THRIVE.

THRIVE evokes the inner strength that guides us to fulfil our goals, the willpower that leads to positive evolution. This is the feeling that led RIOPY to create this new album. The pianist found this collective strength in notes and themes of great composers from classical music history and in integrating strings into his compositions for the first time. With THRIVE, he has written a new chapter.