La Classe d'excellence de violoncelle - Promotion II

© Fondation Louis Vuitton / Gaël Cornier
Date
From 05.11.2015 to 30.06.2016
Place
Auditorium

The Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle is a project during which director Gautier Capuçon transmits his insights to six talented young cellists selected by audition in France and abroad. It was first held at the Fondation Louis Vuitton from December 2014 to June 2015, taking the form of a series of monthly three-day sessions.

For its second season the Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle once more occupies the Foundation’s Auditorium from November 2015 to the end of June 2016, with each monthly session lasting three to four days.

Each session will feature masterclasses open to the public in the morning, as well as concerts at the end of the day at which the young cellists—the eminent instrumentalists of tomorrow—will perform the pieces they are working on (programs for solo cello, sonatas for cello and piano, and concertos with piano accompaniment). Covering both artistic and professional coaching, the Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle aims to allow the six participants to deepen their musical awareness and to understand what it takes to embark on a professional career.

In this exceptional venue devoted to the creative arts, the young talents will be immersed in an environment that promotes openness, emulation, and inspiration. As a complement to the high level of musical training they have already received, Gautier Capuçon, together with pianist Samuel Parent, acts a facilitator of interchange and innovation, accompanying them on their personal and artistic project.

the artists

Gautier Capuçon

Gautier Capuçon is one today’s foremost ambassadors – as both musician and mentor – for the cello. Every season, he performs with the world’s most renowned conductors and instrumentalists. In January 2022, furthering his commitment to teaching and mentoring young artists, he established his own foundation to provide up-and-coming musicians with a springboard for their professional pursuits. To date, the Fondation Gautier Capuçon has supported 36 budding cellists. Mr Capuçon is acclaimed worldwide for his remarkably expressive musicality, great virtuosity and the deep sonority of his 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello, “L’Ambassadeur”. 

During the Covid pandemic, following the end of the first lockdown in the summer of 2020, Mr Capuçon set off on a special tour, Un été en France (A Summer in France) – a musical journey that allowed families across the country to attend live concerts. He arranged another such tour the following year, this time inviting young instrumentalists and dancers to join him on stage. Following such success, the initiative has continued and, to date, has drawn over 145,000 spectators to 80 concerts held in 66 towns and villages in France, giving 69 emerging artists the chance to share the stage and spotlight at his side. The tour has been the subject of five documentaries, the most recent of which aired between Christmas and New Year’s Eve 2025.

Highlights of his orchestral collaborations in recent seasons include concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Christian Thielemann, Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Stéphane Denève, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Christoph Koncz, as well as tours with the Filarmonica della Scala conducted by Riccardo Chailly, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony (hr-Sinfonieorchester) under Alain Altinoglu and the Rotterdam Philharmonic with conductor Lahav Shani.

He recently toured across Europe and performed at Carnegie Hall with Evgeny Kissin, as well as with Rudolf Buchbinder, Renaud Capuçon and Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider. Each year, in his capacity as a chamber musician, he is invited to perform with partners such as Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Lisa Batiashvili, Frank Braley, Renaud Capuçon, Jérôme Ducros, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Menahem Pressler, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Yuja Wang, as well as with celebrated quartets, including the Quatuors Artemis, Ébène, Hagen and Modigliani.

Gautier Capuçon also founded the Capucelli ensemble alongside six young cellists, graduates of his “Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle”, an audition-based mentoring programme. Capucelli has performed across Europe and in Taiwan.

The 2025/26 season took Mr Capuçon on tour with the Berliner Philharmoniker and conductor Kirill Petrenko. He also enjoyed a residency with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and performed with the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt for the openings of the Dvořák Prague Festival and the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Further, he performed with the Orchestre de Paris under Andrés Orozco-Estrada, the San Francisco Symphony led by Simone Young and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich conducted by Paavo Järvi.

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.

Memorable moments in chamber music include Mr Capuçon’s concerts with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and violinist Lisa Batiashvili, as well as a performance tour with pianist Nikolai Lugansky.

He also collaborates with many contemporary composers, including Lera Auerbach, Karol Beffa, Esteban Benzecry, Nicola Campogrande, Qigang Chen, Bryce Dessner, Richard Dubugnon, Henri Dutilleux, Jérôme Ducros, Danny Elfman, Thierry Escaich, Joe Hisaishi, Philippe Manoury, Bruno Mantovani, Andrew Norman, Krzysztof Penderecki, Max Richter, Wolfgang Rihm and Jörg Widmann.

Recording exclusively for Erato (Warner Music), Mr Capuçon has won many awards for his extensive and varied discography. Following his album Intuition, his 2020 release, Émotions, featuring works by composers such as Debussy, Schubert and Elgar, topped the sales charts for over 30 weeks, with more than 100,000 copies sold worldwide, and was certified gold in France. In 2022, his subsequent album, entitled Sensations, became the first classical recording to reach number one on the all-genre charts in France. It was followed by Destination Paris in 2023, focused on works dedicated to France’s capital. After his album Elgar & Walton: Cello Concertos, recorded with Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra and released in autumn 2024, Mr Capuçon created an album inspired by world premieres, Gaïa, in November 2025. Bringing together works by leading-edge musical minds such as Max Richter, Bryce Dessner, Ludovico Einaudi, Gabriela Montero, Joe Hisaishi and Nico Muhly, the album was presented in concert with the San Francisco Symphony in November 2025.

His previous recordings include the Shostakovich concertos with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra, works by Saint-Saëns with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France led by Lionel Bringuier, the complete Beethoven sonatas with pianist Frank Braley, Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major with the Quatuor Ébène, Intuition with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris under Douglas Boyd, as well as live recordings with Martha Argerich, Renaud Capuçon and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Bernard Haitink. He also recorded Beethoven’s piano trios with Renaud Capuçon and Frank Braley, sonatas composed by Franck and Chopin with Yuja Wang, as well as a solo album, Souvenirs, with works by Bach, Dutilleux and Kodály alongside a greatest-hits collection, forming a three-disc set released especially for his 40th birthday. Mr Capuçon’s most recent album, Gaïa, features sixteen works – inspired by nature and the Earth – written for him by composers from a broad cultural spectrum.

Gautier Capuçon also appears on a number of live DVDs, such as his performance of Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Berlin Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, and that of Brahms’s Double Concerto with Lisa Batiashvili and the Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Christian Thielemann.

In addition to his myriad performance commitments, the cellist is an ambassador for the “Orchestre à l’École” non-profit organisation, bringing music to young people in school settings through learning programmes lasting three to four years. Today, there are 1,630 school orchestras composed of some 44,000 children spread across the near-entirety of France. Since its founding, more than 184,000 students have benefitted from this initiative.

In January 2021, Mr Capuçon was promoted to the rank of Chevalier in France’s Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur.

From 2019 through 2025, he hosted Les Carnets de Gautier Capuçon, a popular programme broadcast weekdays from 5 to 6 p.m. on France’s Radio Classique. An established celebrity in his home country, he frequently makes television appearances and has served as a judge on the France 2 television show Prodiges since the programme’s inception in 2014, a broadcast that annually draws more than three million viewers over the year-end holiday season.

Born in Chambéry, France, 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.

Samuel Parent

Samuel Parent est né en 1982 dans le Vaucluse.


Après avoir étudié avec Michel Bourdoncle à Aix-en-Provence, puis Olivier Gardon à Paris, il est admis en 2000 dans la classe de Brigitte Engerer au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, dont il sort quatre ans plus tard avec un diplôme de Formation Supérieure, mention très bien.

En 2008, il remporte le deuxième prix au concours international Rina Sala Gallo de Monza, Italie. Cette même année, il intègre la classe de musique de chambre du quatuor Artemis à la Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth de Belgique.

 

Pendant une quinzaine d'années, Samuel Parent a été le pianiste du Trio con Fuoco, ensemble récompensé dans plusieurs concours internationaux (Illzach, Florence, Heerlen...) et au sein duquel il s'est produit dans de nombreux festivals (Aix-en-Provence, la Roque d'Anthéron, Flâneries musicales de Reims) et sur la scène mondiale : concerts à  l'Auditorium du Louvre, au Bozar de Bruxelles, à l'Auditorium de Dijon, au Maroc, en Espagne, aux Pays-Bas, en Inde, en Amérique Centrale...

 

Chambriste recherché, Samuel Parent se produit avec de nombreux artistes tels que Gautier Capuçon, le quatuor Ebène, Hugues Borsarello, le quatuor Van Kuijk,  Henri Demarquette, Olivier Patey, Erik Berchot, Ami Flammer, Frédéric Aguessy, Emmanuel Christien, Mathilde Borsarello-Herrmann, Karen Vourc'h, Mari Eriksmoen... Il a ainsi été invité dans des cadres prestigieux comme le Palais de la Musique à Valencia, les Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad ou la saison musicale de Schloss Elmau. En France, Samuel Parent a joué notamment au festival Pianoscope à Beauvais, au Festival de Colmar, au Festival de Chambord, Musique en Côte Basque, au Printemps de la Grange au Lac, à la salle Gaveau, au théâtre du Châtelet à Paris.

 

Samuel Parent se distingue également pour ses talents d'accompagnateur : depuis janvier 2014, il est le pianiste de Yanowski qu'il accompagne dans son tour de chant « la Passe Interdite ». Il est régulièrement invité dans diverses académies estivales pour apporter son soutien à de nombreux étudiants. Depuis 2015, il est le pianiste accompagnateur de la classe d'Excellence de Violoncelle de Gautier Capuçon à la Fondation Louis Vuitton à Paris. En 2019, Samuel Parent est l'un des accompagnateurs officiels du Concours Musical Reine Elisabeth à Bruxelles.

 

Samuel Parent se distingue également pour ses talents d'accompagnateur : depuis janvier 2014, il est le pianiste de Yanowski qu'il accompagne dans son tour de chant « la Passe Interdite ». Il est régulièrement invité dans diverses académies estivales pour apporter son soutien à de nombreux étudiants. Depuis 2015, il est le pianiste accompagnateur de la classe d'Excellence de Violoncelle de Gautier Capuçon à la Fondation Louis Vuitton à Paris. En 2019, Samuel Parent est l'un des accompagnateurs officiels du Concours Musical Reine Elisabeth à Bruxelles.Samuel Parent se distingue également pour ses talents d'accompagnateur : depuis janvier 2014, il est le pianiste de Yanowski qu'il accompagne dans son tour de chant « la Passe Interdite ». Il est régulièrement invité dans diverses académies estivales pour apporter son soutien à de nombreux étudiants. Depuis 2015, il est le pianiste accompagnateur de la classe d'Excellence de Violoncelle de Gautier Capuçon à la Fondation Louis Vuitton à Paris. En 2019, Samuel Parent est l'un des accompagnateurs officiels du Concours Musical Reine Elisabeth à Bruxelles.

Stéphane Tétreault

Canada

Aged 22

Canadian, lives in Montreal

Master’s in performance and cello at Montreal University in the class of the late Yuli Turovsky and of Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot.

Winner of the first Fernand-Lindsay Career Award and of the Choquette-Symcox Prize in 2013

First prize at the Standard Life-OSM 2007 Montreal Symphonic Orchestra Competition and Radio-Canada “Revelation” for 2011-2012 for classical music.

First soloist in residence at the Orchestre Métropolitain since 2014.

Awarded travel bursaries from the Conseil des Arts et Lettres, Quebec and the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as a Career Award from the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto Foundation in 2015.

Charles Hervet

31years old (France)

Born in Burgundy, France, Charles Hervet started learning the Cello at the age of 6. In 2011, he made his Wigmore Hall debut and took part in a BBC documentary. Recent highlights include chamber music with Gautier Capuçon, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Bertrand Chamayou, Renaud Capuçon, the Metropolitan Opera and Berliner Philharmoniker soloists. These performances have been broadcasted on BBC Radio 3, France Musique, and Radio Classique. Future engagements include performances in New York City, San Francisco, Geneva, Lausanne, Liège, Dortmund, Vienna, Milan, and Paris.

As a student, Charles was a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, and has since then kept a profound love for orchestral playing. Over the last years, he has had the opportunity to play in world known venues such as Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Salzburg Grosses Festspielhaus and Felsenreitschule, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Berlin Philharmonie, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Paris Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, London Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall and Barbican, or New York Avery Fisher Hall, and to work with great conductors and soloists like Herbert Blomstedt, Daniele Gatti, Christoph von Dohnányi, Emmanuel Krivine, Sir Antonio Pappano, Hans Graf, Sir Mark Elder, Trevor Pinnock, Philippe Jordan, Marin Alsop, Maurizio Benini, John Adams, Nikolaj Znaider, Guy Braunstein, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Joyce DiDonato, Matthew Polenzani, Leif Ove Andsnes, Emmanuel Pahud, Nicholas Angelich, or Imogen Cooper.

 

Over the course of his studies, Charles Hervet trained on a regular basis with Gautier Capuçon, Colin Carr, or Mario Brunello, and took part in masterclasses with Truls Mørk, Steven Isserlis, Gary Hoffman, Wolfgang Boettcher, Christian Poltera, Reinhard Latzko, Konstantin Pfiz, David Watkin and Christophe Coin. In chamber music he got advices from Christopher Richter, Thomas Brandis, Ian Brown, the Škampa, Wihan, Artis, or Allegri Quartets in masterclasses in London or Manchester sponsored by the Wigmore Hall Trust.

 

Charles Hervet graduated with a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Arts from the Royal Academy of Music and is a laureate of Gautier Capuçon’s Classe d’Excellence at the Fondation Louis Vuitton.


Marion Platero

France

Aged 25

French, lives in Madrid (ES)

Holder of a Master’s in cello (at the highest grade, cum laude, unanimously awarded by the jury) at the CNSMD in Paris

Student at the Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia in Madrid in the class of Natalia Shakhovskaya and Ivan Monighetti, with a distinction from Queen Sofia of Spain

Awarded a grant from the Mécénat Musical Société Générale in 2009, second prize at the Carlos Prieto International Cello Competition (Morelia, Mexico) “Révélation Classique” ADAMI 2009

Joona Pulkkinen

Finland

25 years

Finnish, living in Tampere (FI)

Student at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium in the class of Gary Hoffman
3rd Prize at the Turku National Cello Competition

Solo cello at the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra since September 2014

Instrument by Giovanni Grancino from 1698, kindly loaned by the Pohjola Bank Art Foundation

Armance Quéro

France

Aged 26

French, lives in Paris (FR)

CNSMD Paris diploma in 2012 (unanimously awarded first prize, the first so acknowledged), in the class of Roland Pidoux and of Xavier Phillips

Grant holder from the Adami and the Mécénat Musical Société Générale for 2012-2013

Award winner at the Fondation Safran (2015) and Fondation de France (2014) for a recording project centring on the French sonata around 1915

Third prize at the International Music Competition Belgrade in 2010

Julia Hagen

27 years old (Austria)

Cellist Julia Hagen, born in Salzburg in 1995, is one oAf the most promising instrumentalists of her generation. At the age of 5 she received her first lessons from Detlef Mielke at the Musikum Salzburg. She went on to study at the Salzburg Mozarteum with Enrico Bronzi, at the University of Vienna with Reinhard Latzko and from 2013 to 2015 with legendary cellist Heinrich Schiff. In 2015 the young musician moved to Berlin to continue her studies under Jens Peter Maintz at the Universität der Künste. She is currently a scholarship holder of the Kronberg Academy, where she is working with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt.

Julia Hagen made her debut at the Brucknerhaus Linz at the age of 14, playing as soloist with the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra. Since then she has played extensively throughout Europe and Japan, including in venues like the Wiener Konzerthaus (where she was a Great Talent in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons), Wiener Musikverein, Tonhalle Zürich, Barbican Hall and Suntory Hall. She has performed with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Tonhalle- Orchester Zürich, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, City of Birmingham Orchestra, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, I Pommerigi Musicali and the Kremerata Baltica, and has worked with conductors such as Ivor Bolton, Sir Andrew Davis, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Ingo Metzmacher, Markus Poschner, James Feddeck, Kristiina Poska and Giedrė Šlekytė. As a chamber musician, she has performed regularly with Igor Levit, Alexander Lonquich, Aaron Pilsan, Annika Treutler, Florian Boesch, Renaud Capuçon, Tobias Feldmann, Thomas Reif, Gérard Caussé, Clemens Hagen, Dominik Wagner as well as the Armida and Artemis Quartets.

 

In season 2022/23, she continues her close artistic partnership with the Bruckner Orchestra Linz with concerts in Linz and Montreux. Other highlights include concerts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2), Vancouver Symphony Orchestra under Joshua Weilerstein (Haydn Cello Concerto in C major), Orchestra della Svizzera italiana under Krzysztof Urbański (Dvorak Cello Concerto), Sofia Philharmonic under Nayden Todorov (Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1), Göttingen Symphony Orchestra under Nicholas Milton (Elgar Cello Concerto) and a tour in France with the Orchestre de Chambre de Nouvelle Aquitaine together with Renaud Capuçon (Beethoven Triple Concerto). In chamber music, she will perform with Clemens Hagen on a Japan tour, Igor Levit and Johan Dalene (Heidelberger Frühling), Alexander Ullman as well as the Quatuor Arod, the Hagen Quartet and Gautier Capuçon's cello ensemble, Capucelli, among others. Since the 2021/22 season, she is also part of the debut programme of the Nikolaisaal Potsdam.

 

Between 2014 and 2016, Julia Hagen was one of six carefully selected young cellists who took part in the Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle taught by Gautier Capuçon and supported by the Louis Vuitton Foundation. Masterclasses with Gábor Takács-Nagy, Pamela Frank, Lawrence Power, Nobuko Imai, Torleif Thedéen, Laurence Lesser and Claudio Bohorquez round off her training. She is a prize winner of the international cello competition in Liezen and the Mazzacurati cello competition. She received the Hajek-Boss-Wagner Culture Prize, as well as the Nicolas-Firmenich Prize of the Verbier Festival Academy.

 

In 2019 Julia Hagen and her long-time chamber music partner, pianist Annika Treutler, released their first album with the two cello sonatas and transcribed songs by Johannes Brahms on Hänssler Classic. Julia Hagen plays a cello by Francesco Ruggieri (Cremona, 1684), which is provided to her privately. 

Relive the masterclasses

5 November 2015 Cello Masterclass Season 2 - Gautier Capuçon (first session)

19 and 20 December 2015 Cello Masterclass Season 2 - Gautier Capuçon (second session)

7 and 8 February 2016 Cello Masterclass Season 2 - Gautier Capuçon (third session)

7 and 9 March 2016 Cello Masterclass Season 2 - Gautier Capuçon (fourth session)

7 & 8 May 2016 Cello Masterclass Season 2 - Gautier Capuçon (fifth session)