After studying in Lausanne and the Guildhall School in London, François Piolino is awarded a Premier Prix at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris. He has been studing for years with the tenor Guy Flechter, in Paris.
While at the Guildhall, he meets William Christie and joins Les Arts Florissants : he sings in Dido and Aeneas (sailor and spirit) (Aix-en-Provence, Buenos Aires) ; in works by Charpentier, like the Te Deum, Médée (a Corynthian and Jealousy) (Opéra Comique in Paris, London, New York) or La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers (Tantale) _ and in numeros French music from the 17th and 18 century, among which Les Indes galantes (Don Carlos) (Opéra de Paris - Garnier) and Les Paladins (Manto) (Châtelet, London, Shanghai, Tokyo) by Rameau..
With Jean-Claude Marlgoire he takes part in the Monteverdi trilogy : he is Orpheus in L'Orfeo, Telemachus in The Return of Ulysses and Lucano in in The crowning of Poppea.
Marc Minkowski asks him to be Mercury in Orpheus in the Underworld (Lyon); Lucano in Poppea (Vienna, Aix-en-Provence), Don Basilio in Nozze di Figaro (Baden-Baden) and Remendado in Carmen (Châtelet).
The Opéra National de Lyon invites him to take part in numerous productions : Traviata (Gastone) ; The Magic Flute (Monostatos, role he also sang at the Festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Edinburgh and Gstaad) ; Ariadne auf Naxos (Sacarmuccio) ; The Queen of Spade (Tchekalinsky).
François Piolino has his debut at the Opéra National de Paris with the role of Tisiphone in Hippolyte et Aricie by Rameau ; he is a frequent guest , as well in Garnier as at the Bastille : Pulchinella by Stravinsky; Les Indes Galantes (Don Carlos) by Rameau, Nozze di Figaro (Don Curzio), Magic Flute (Monostatos), Wozzeck (the fool), Ariadne auf Naxos (Scaramuccio), Salome (3rd Jew). He had a great succes as the Novice in Billy Budd.
At the Théâtre du Châtelet, he sings Mozart’s Requiem ; he is Scaramuccio in Ariadne auf Naxos, Schmidt in Werther, Manto in Les Paladins by Rameau or Badal in the very rarely staged Padmâvatî by Roussel.
In Saint-Étienne he sings Beppe / Arlecchino (I Pagliacci) ; in Liege, the four servants in Hoffmann’s Tales and Sebas in Der König Kandaules by Zemlinsky; in Marseille, Monsieur Triquet in Eugene Onegin ; in Montpellier, Remendado in Carmen; in Rennes, he is Caius in Falstaff, and George Dibdin in the French creation - almost two hundred years after the world creation - of the Vampyr by Marshner ; in Geneva, he is Jew in Salomé and at the l'Opéra National du Rhin, in Strasburg, he is Schmidt in Werther and Caius in Falstaff..
In Nancy, François Piolino is Vazacchi in Rosenkavalier, Monostatos in the Magic Flute, Sebas in Der König Kandaules, Loustot in Véronique, Flute/Thisby in Britten's Midsummernight's Dream, or the teapot, arithmetics and the frog in L'enfant et les sortilèges and Don Basilio in Nozze di Figaro .
At the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin he is Ramendado in Carmen and Goro in Madama Butterfly.
Besides the baroque conducters William Christie, Christophe Rousset, Mark Minkowski or Jean-Claude Malgoire, François Piolino sings with Yvan Fischer, Michel Plasson, Bernhard Kontarsky, Dan Ettinger, Olari Elts, Juraj Valcuha, Lawrence Foster, Hartmut Haenchen, Geoffrey Tate, Pinchas Zukerman or Philippe Jordan.
He works with numerous directors, among which Jean-Marie Villégier, Laurent Pelli, Klaus Michael Grüber, Stéphane Braunschweig, Bob Wilson, Jean-Louis Martinotti, Günter Krämer, Jean-Claude Berutti, Patrice Caurier and Moshé Leiser, Mariame Clément, Christoph Marthaler...
François Piolino also sings oratorio (Bach cantatas, Evangelist in the Passions)and gives recitals : lieder and songs by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Gounod or Bizet, and a programm entirely dedicated to Christmas music.
Among his recordings, there are, with Les Arts Florissants : mottets by Mondonville and Rameau ; La descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and Médée by Charpentier ; Hippolyte et Aricie by Rameau or the Lamento di Giasone by Sigismondod’India. For television and the DVD, there are life-recordings of Marianne (by Edouard Lacamp, world premiere in Saint-Étienne) , Les Indes galantes (Opéra de Paris), Werther and Les Paladins (Châtelet).
In the next seasons Merry Widow, L'enfant et les sortilèges, Magic Flute or Carmen at the Opéra de Paris ; L'enfant et les sortilèges and L'heure espagnole at Glyndebourne.