Recital Gautier Capuçon, cello - Frank Braley, piano

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.

Regularly invited to perform in Japan, the U.S.A., Canada and throughout Europe, Mr Braley is a partner of the world’s greatest orchestras, such as the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre National de France, the Philharmonique de Radio-France, the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Orchestres of Bordeaux, Lille, Montpellier and Toulouse, the Orchestre National de Belgique, the Philharmonique de Liège, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Gürzenich Orchester Cologne, the London Philharmonic, the BBC Wales Orchestra, the Royal National Scottish Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Orchestre de la Suisse Italienne, the Berlin Radio Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra[T1] , the Royal Copenhagen Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and more. He has performed under the direction of conductors such as J-C Casadesus, Stéphane Deneve, Charles Dutoit, Armin Jordan, Hans Graf, Gunther Herbig, Christopher Hogwood, Eliahu Inbal, Marek Janowski, Kiril Karabits, Emmanuel Krivine, Louis Langrée, Kurt Masur, Ludovic Morlot, Paul Mc Creesh, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, John Nelson, Michel Plasson, Yutaka Sado, Michael Schonwandt, Antonio Pappano, Walter Weller and others.

Frank Braley has toured the world: in China with the Orchestre National de France, in Japan and China with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, in Italy with the Orchestre Français des Jeunes and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto. He played at the Tanglewood Festival (U.S.A.) with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hans Graf and took part in the inauguration of Carnegie Hall’s new Zankel Hall in New York with the Ensemble Intercontemporain. He replaced Martha Argerich at the London Proms with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Myung-Whung and performed in Amsterdam and Paris with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Bernard Haitink. He has recently performed in Paris at the Salle Pleyel venue with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (Bach) and with the Orchestre National d’Ile de France (Mozart), at La Folle Journée de Nantes and in Japan with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot (Mozart), then this season [T1] with the Orchestre National de France and the São Paulo Symphony conducted by Stéphane Denève (Poulenc), with the Hong-Kong Sinfonietta, the Seoul Philharmonic and Hans Graf, the New Japan Philharmonic, as well as with his Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie on tour.

In recital, he has performed in Paris, London, Vienna, Amsterdam, Brussels, Hanover and Ferrara, and in duo with Renaud Capuçon in Amsterdam, Athens, Birmingham, Bonn, Brussels, Rome, Florence, Trieste, New York, Washington, Paris and Vienna. In chamber music, his partners include Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Maria João Pires, Gérard Caussé, Eric Le Sage, Paul Meyer and Emmanuel Pahud.

In addition to his regular work as a soloist, he is passionate about original projects: In 2023, he performed Maurice Ravel’s Concerto in G Major for piano and orchestra alongside the Opéra de Paris Ballet and Orchestra for Jérome Robbins’ ballet En Sol. He took part in a complete performance of Beethoven’s piano sonatas at the La Roque d’Anthéron festival, as well as in Rome, Bilbao, Lisbon, Tokyo and Brazil. He has performed the complete sonatas for violin and piano [T1] with Renaud Capuçon in Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées), Bordeaux, Grenoble, Chambéry, Lyon, as well as in London (Wigmore Hall), Luxembourg, Singapore and Hong Kong.

His discography includes: for Harmonia Mundi, the Sonata D.959 and the Klavierstücke D.946 (Diapason d’Or) – which earned him flattering comparisons to Claudio Arrau, Alfred Brendel, Radu Lupu and Andras Schiff –, the piano works of Richard Strauss, Beethoven’s sonatas, a Gershwin recital and Poulenc’s Double Concerto (BMG – Prix Caecilia in Belgium, Diapason d’Or). He took part in Eric Le Sage’s recording of the complete Schumann works. With Naïve: the DVD Liszt- Debussy-Gershwin (“Choc” by Monde de la Musique). For Virgin Classics/Erato, he has recorded chamber music by Ravel, Le Carnaval des Animaux by Saint-Saëns (“Choc” by Monde de la Musique, “Recording of the Month” by Gramophone), Schubert’s Trout, the Schubert trios with Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, the Hungarian Dances with Nicholas Angelich and the complete Beethoven sonatas for violin and piano with Renaud Capuçon, unanimously acclaimed by the critics.

After a first Schubert/Debussy/Britten/Carter recording, Frank Braley and Gautier Capuçon recorded the complete Beethoven sonatas for cello and piano for Erato.

The latest Erato release is Beethoven’s Ghost and Archduke trios, with Renaud and Gautier Capuçon (February 2020).

Frank Braley was Musical Director of the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie from 2014 to 2021. He has been Professor at the Conservatoire de Paris since September 2011.