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Gautier Capuçon
Cello
“Gautier Capuçon plays the cello with the control and wisdom of a much older musician. The lightness of his touch and the consistent clarity of his bow strokes are quite admirable in themselves, but when combined with an uncanny sweetness of tone in the higher registers they are breathtaking.” – Gramophone
One of the world’s leading young cellists, Gautier Capuçon was born in Chambéry in 1981 and began playing the cello at the age of five. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire and in 1999 won both the first prize of the Maurice Ravel Music Academy of Saint-Jean-de-Luz and the André Navarra Competition in Toulouse. The following year he was awarded the Paris Conservatoire’s Cello and Chamber Music Prize and has since attended Heinrich Schiff’s masterclasses in Vienna. In 2001 the Victoires de la Musique, France’s top music awards, named him New Talent of the Year and in 2004 he received an award from Borletti-Buitoni Trust.
As a member of the European Community Youth Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester he performed in 1997/98 under conductors such as Haitink, Nagano, Boulez, Gatti, Ozawa and Abbado. As a soloist he has now played with, among others, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra Rome under Myung-Whun Chung, the Philadelphia Orchestra under Charles Dutoit, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Hans Graf, the Orchestre de Paris under Christoph Eschenbach, the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris under John Nelson and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo under the late Armin Jordan. Recent highlights have included performances with the Munich Philharmonic under Paavo Jarvi and appearances with Camerata Athens and Sir Neville Marriner, the Orchestre de Bordeaux and Louis Langrée, the Orchestre de Lyon, Orchestre National de France and Dresden Philharmonie and tours with the the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, the New Zealand Symphony and – in China – the Orchestre de Strasbourg under Marc Albrecht. In February 2008 he makes his debut with Washington DC’s National Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin.
A keen chamber musician, Gautier Capuçon recently undertook a tour of Italy in a trio with Katia Labèque and Victoria Mullova, while his other chamber partners include Martha Argerich (with whom he made a tour of Japan), Daniel Barenboim, , Yuri Bashmet, Gérard Caussé, Myung-Whun Chung, Hélène Grimaud, Stephen Kovacevich, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Lilya Zilberstein and the Ysaÿe Quartet. His closest musical relationship is with his violinist brother Renaud, with whom he notably made a critically acclaimed US recital tour. He has also given solo recitals across Europe, and appears regularly at major European music festivals.
Gautier’s recordings for Virgin Classics include Haydn Cello Concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Daniel Harding, and with Renaud a number of works by Brahms – the Double Concerto (with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and Myung-Whun Chung), Clarinet Quintet and Trios, the Ravel Trio, Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet, Face à face and Inventions (both albums of duos) and a hugely popular version of Saint-Saëns’ Carnaval des animaux. January 2008 brings the release of cello sonatas by Prokofiev & Rachmaninov with pianist Gabriela Montero.
Gautier Capuçon plays a 1701 Matteo Goffriler cello and a 1746 Joseph Contreras loaned to him by BSI SA Lugano.
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