A longtime staple of the budget Vox label's catalog, pianist Michael Ponti specialized in unknown Romantic repertory. He also recorded mainstream works and was the first pianist to record the complete keyboard works of Scriabin, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninov. Two major prizes in 1964 helped launch his career, which began with an appearance in Vienna playing Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 2 under conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch. Ponti's New York debut in 1972 was a famous concert in which he played nine encores. Ponti founded the Ponti-Zimansky-Polasek Trio in 1977 and appeared widely with that group as well. His career lasted well into the 2000s, and Vox reissued his Scriabin cycle in 2002. He was slowed by a stroke in the late '90s that damaged his right hand, but he continued to perform, playing left-hand piano repertory. He died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, on October 17, 2022.