He won a scholarship to the Salzburg Mozarteum and a French government grant to study with Magda Tagliaferro in Paris from 1964 till 1969.
Soon afterward, he became more prominent with his first-prize victory in the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, followed being a replacement for Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli as guest soloist for the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto at the Vienna Festival.
He has performed many American and European masterworks, including Bernstein's Age of Anxiety, which he recorded with Leonard Slatkin and the BBC London Symphony Orchestra, and John Corigliano's Piano Concerto.
An especially accomplished recitalist, Tocco has performed interpretations of Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt, as well as 20th-century composers, and he regularly programs the keyboard works of Handel.
Tocco is the co-founder and original artistic director of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.