#FLVfromhome: Yuja Wang et Gautier Capuçon

Season highlights include Yuja’s year-long “Artist Spotlight” at the Barbican Centre, where she curates and performs in four distinct events: the first London performance of John Adams’ newest piano concerto (premiered by her in Spring 2019) titled Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, which they take to Boston and New York City; recitals featuring cellist Gautier Capuçon and clarinetist Andreas Ottensamer; and she concludes the residency with a solo recital.

In autumn of 2019, she tours China with the Vienna Philharmonic, presenting concerts in Macao, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Wuhan. The beginning of 2020 sees Yuja and Gautier Capuçon reuniting for a recital tour featuring eleven dates presented in Europe’s premiere venues, including the Philharmonie de Paris and the Wiener Konzerthaus. She then embarks on an extensive solo recital tour, appearing in renowned concert halls throughout North America and Europe, including Carnegie Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, and the Het Concertgebouw, running from February to April.

Additionally, Yuja will be the featured soloist with some of the leading orchestras of North America, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Andris Nelsons; the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gustavo Gimeno; the San Francisco Symphony, led by Michael Tilson Thomas; and the Philadelphia Orchestra, under the musical direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Yuja received advanced training in Canada and at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music under Gary Graffman. Her international breakthrough came in 2007 when she replaced Martha Argerich as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She later signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon and has since established her place among the world’s leading artists, with a succession of critically acclaimed performances and recordings.

Mr Capuçon has recently performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. This gave him the opportunity to collaborate with Alain Altinoglu, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Semyon Bychkov, Stéphane Denève, Valery Gergiev, Philippe Jordan, Andris Nelsons and Gianandrea Noseda. Gautier Capuçon was Artist in Residence with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano.

Over the course of his career, Mr Capuçon has forged many deep and lasting musical friendships. He is invited each season to play with the greatest orchestras, including the Philharmonic Orchestras of Berlin, Vienna, Los Angeles and New York, as well as the Chicago, San Francisco and London Symphony Orchestras. He works with conductors such as Lionel Bringuier, Myung-Whun Chung, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Paavo Järvi, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Andrés Orozco-Estrada and Tugan Sokhiev. He also collaborates with many contemporary composers, including Lera Auerbach, Karol Beffa, Esteban Benzecry, Nicola Campogrande, Qigang Chen, Bryce Dessner, Richard Dubugnon, Jérôme Ducros, Henri Dutilleux, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Manoury, Bruno Mantovani, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, and Jörg Widmann. Past projects include the world premiere of Tabachnik’s cello concerto Summer, as well as collaborations with Danny Elfman and Thierry Escaich.

As a chamber musician, he is invited to perform in the world’s most superb venues and at the most renowned festivals with partners such as Nicholas Angelich, Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Lisa Batiashvili, Frank Braley, Renaud Capuçon, Jérôme Ducros, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Menahem Pressler, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yuja Wang and the Artemis and Ébène Quartets.

Discography: Recording exclusively for Erato (Warner Classics), Mr Capuçon has won multiple awards and boasts an extensive discography. Earlier recordings include Shostakovich with the Mariinsky Orchestra/Valery Gergiev, Saint-Saëns (Concerto No. 1 and La Muse et Le Poète) with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Lionel Bringuier, Schubert’s String Quintet with the Ébène Quartet; and the complete Beethoven sonatas with Frank Braley. His latest releases include the album Intuition (February 2018) recorded with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris/Douglas Boyd and pianist Jérôme Ducros, a live Schumann album with Martha Argerich, Renaud Capuçon, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Bernard Haitink (January 2019), as well as the sonatas of Chopin and Franck with pianist Yuja Wang (December 2019). Since the fall of 2019, he has been presenting Les Carnets de Gautier Capuçon on France’s Radio Classique, heard daily from 5 to 6 p.m. Mr Capuçon also appears onscreen and online in programmes such as The Artist Academy, Prodiges and Now Hear This. In 2013, Deutsche Grammophon also released a live DVD of Mr Capuçon with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Gustavo Dudamel in a performance of Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1.

In October 2021, to celebrate his 40th birthday, he released the three-CD album Souvenirs of iconic chamber-music works and repertoire for solo cello.

In November 2020, he released another album, Emotions, featuring transcriptions by pianist Jérôme Ducros of works by Debussy, Satie, Elgar, Schubert and Edith Piaf, with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Adrien Perruchon.

His album Sensations came out in November 2022, with transcriptions of classical works, French songs, and opera arias, accompanied by Jérôme Ducros, Lucienne Renaudin Vary, Fatma Saïd, the Ensemble Capucelli, the Orchestre National de Bretagne and Johanna Malangré. In January 2021, Mr Capuçon was promoted to the rank of Chevalier in France’s Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur.

Born in Chambéry in 1981, Gautier Capuçon began playing the cello at the age of five with Augustin Lefèbvre and studied in Paris with Annie Cochet-Zakine, Philippe Muller, then in Vienna with Heinrich Schiff. He has been awarded several first prizes in international competitions, including the Premier Grand Prix at the Concours International André Navarra in Toulouse.