About
"It’s the rare performer who can bring such ease and refinement to this music, while still giving everything he plays a sense of dramatic urgency." (San Francisco Chronicle)
Gautier Capuçon is a true 21st century ambassador for the cello. Performing each season with many of the world’s foremost conductors and instrumentalists, he is also founder and leader of the ‘Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle’ at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris – based in the stunning new Auditorium designed by Frank Gehry. He is acclaimed internationally for his deeply expressive musicianship and exuberant virtuosity, as well as for the glorious sonority of his 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello.
During 2016/17 he returns to such orchestras as the London Symphony and Philharmonia orchestras, Berliner Philharmoniker, Russian National Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Münchner Philharmoniker, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony – and is being reinvited for concerts in Japan, China and Korea. In recent seasons he has also performed with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Wiener Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, New York Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Sydney Symphony and Mariinsky orchestras, as well as with all of the major orchestras across France.
Gautier Capuçon continues to work regularly with conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Semyon Bychkov, Valery Gergiev, Gustavo Dudamel, Lionel Bringuier, Andris Nelsons, Christoph Eschenbach, Andrés Orozco-Estrada and Yannick Nézet-Séguin; and collaborates with contemporary composers including, amongst others, Lera Auerbach, Karol Beffa, Esteban Benzecry, Nicola Campogrande, Qigang Chen, Jerome Ducros, Henry Dutilleux, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Manoury, Bruno Mantovani, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm.
A regular recital and chamber musician, Capuçon appears annually in the major halls and festivals worldwide alongside artists such as Nicholas Angelich, Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Lisa Batiashvili, Frank Braley, Renaud Capuçon, Jérôme Ducros, Leonidas Kavakos, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Menahem Pressler, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and the Artemis and Ebène quartets. Forthcoming highlights include an extensive European recital tour of Beethoven Sonatas with Frank Braley, supporting the international release of an album featuring the same repertoire.
Capuçon records exclusively for Erato (Warner Classics) and has won multiple ECHO Klassik awards. Most recent releases include Shostakovich’s Cello Concertos with the Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev; and Schubert’s String Quintet with Quatuor Ebène. Prior to that he won plaudits for a recital disc of music by Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, Britten and Carter with Frank Braley, and Saint-Saëns’ First Cello Concerto and Muse et le poète with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Lionel Bringuier. He has also recorded chamber music with Martha Argerich, Nicholas Angelich, Renaud Capuçon and Gabriela Montero; and in 2013 Deutsche Grammophon released a DVD featuring Capuçon as soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Gustavo Dudamel in a live performance of Haydn’s Cello Concerto No.1.
Born in Chambéry in 1981, Capuçon began playing the cello at the age of five. He studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris with Philippe Muller and Annie Cochet-Zakine, and later with Heinrich Schiff in Vienna. The winner of various first prizes in many leading international competitions, including the International André Navarra Prize, Capuçon was named ‘New Talent of the Year’ by Victoires de la Musique in 2001.