A pianist ( /ˈpiːənɨst/ PEE-ə-nist) is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.

Most forms of Western music can make use of the piano. Consequently, pianists have a wide variety of repertoire and styles to choose from, including jazz, classical music, and all sorts of popular music.

A performing classical pianist usually starts playing piano at a very young age.

A single listing of pianists in all genres would be impractical, given the multitude of musicians noted for their performances on the instrument. Below are links to lists of well-known or influential pianists divided by genres:

Many well-known classical composers were also virtuoso pianists. The following is an incomplete list of such musicians.

Alice Herz-Sommer, also known as Alice Sommer-Hertz and Alice Sommer, (born 26 November 1903) is a Czech pianist, music teacher and survivor of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Herz-Sommer has lived in North London, United Kingdom since 1986, and is the world’s oldest known Holocaust survivor.

Herz-Sommer was born in Prague, Austria-Hungary, along with her twin sister Mariana, to Friedrich and Sofie Herz; he was a merchant and her mother was highly educated and moved in circles of well-known writers. Herz-Sommer's older sister Irma taught her how to play piano, which she studied diligently. She also studied under Vaclav Stepan, and at the Prague German Conservatory of Music. She had begun giving concerts and making a name for herself before the Germans took over her city.

She married businessman and amateur musician Leopold Sommer in 1931 and they had a son, Raphael ("Rafi") (1937-2001). After the invasion of Czechoslovakia, most of her family and friends emigrated to Palestine via Romania, including Max Brod and brother-in-law Felix Weltsch, but Herz-Sommer stayed in Prague to care for her ill mother, who was one of the first to be sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp. In July 1943, Herz-Sommer, her husband Leopold, and their six-year-old son were sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp. Herz-Sommer played at over 100 concerts in the camp along with other musicians. Leopold was later sent to Auschwitz and though he survived the camp, died at Dachau in 1944. After the Soviet liberation of Theresienstadt in 1945, Herz-Sommer and Rafi returned to Prague and in March 1949 emigrated to Israel to be reunited with her family. She lived in Israel and worked as a music teacher in Jerusalem until emigrating to London, United Kingdom with her son, an accomplished cellist, in 1986.

Alice Herz (25 May 1882 – 26 March 1965) was the first activist in the United States known to have immolated herself in protest of the escalating Vietnam War, following the example of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức who immolated himself in protest of the alleged oppression of Buddhists under the South Vietnamese government. She was a longtime peace activist, and also spoke Esperanto. Herz self-immolated on March 16, 1965, in Detroit, Michigan, at the age of 82. Stephen Burke and sons, William Burke and Stephen Burke, were driving by and saw her burning and put out the flames. She died of her injuries ten days later. According to Taylor Branch's At Canaan's Edge (2006), it was President Lyndon Baines Johnson's address to Congress in support of a Voting Rights Act that led her to believe the moment was propitious to protest the Vietnam War. The war continued for another ten years following her death.

A German of Jewish ancestry, Herz was a widow who left Germany with her daughter, Helga, in 1933, saying that she anticipated the advent of Nazism long before it arrived. Alice and Helga Herz were living in France when Germany invaded in 1940. After spending time in an internment camp, Camp du Gurs, near the Spanish border, Alice and Helga eventually came to the United States in 1942. They settled in Detroit, where Helga became a librarian at the Detroit Public Library and Alice worked for some time as an adjunct instructor of German at Wayne State University. The pair petitioned for, but were denied, U.S. citizenship due to their refusal to vow to defend the nation by arms. Helga Herz later reapplied and was granted citizenship in 1954. (A video about their lives, produced by Helga's cousin, Diane Herz, is available on the Helga Herz Fan Page on Facebook.)