About
One of the most engaging live performers of his generation, the multi award-winning pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet regularly works with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Valery Gergiev, Neeme Järvi, Ingo Metzmacher, Andrew Davis, Andris Nelsons and Krzysztof Urbánski.
Highlights during the 2010/11 season included his debut with the New York Philharmonic, a US tour with Daniele Gatti and the Orchestre National de France and a 2011 BBC Prom with Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
This season Jean-Efflam Bavouzet will return to perform with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Philharmonia Orchestra (both with Vladimir Ashkenazy), as well as the Budapest Festival Orchestra (Iván Fischer), Orchestre National de Lyon (Leonard Slatkin), Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. and performances with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He will also return to Japan to perform with the NHK and Kyoto Symphony orchestras.
An active recitalist, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet regularly performs at the Southbank Centre and at the Wigmore Hall, La Roque d’Anthéron and Piano aux Jacobins Festivals in France, the Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, BOZAR in Brussels, and the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing where he recently received the annual Classical Elites Beijing Instrumental Recital of the Year award for his complete Beethoven sonatas cycle. Recitals in the 2011/12 Season include performances at the Cité de la Musique and the Opéra National de Paris.
An exclusive recording artist for Chandos, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has won multiple awards for his recording project of Debussy’s Complete Works for Solo Piano, including the BBC Music Magazine Award for Volume 3 of the cycle and a Gramophone Award for Volume 4. The first volume of his new recital CD project of Haydn’s complete Piano Sonatas has also received the prestigious Choc de l'annee award in 2010 while his recent recordings of Bartók’s Piano Concertos (with the BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda) and works by Ravel and Debussy (with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Yan Pascal Tortelier) have received great critical acclaim. Future recording projects include a Beethoven Piano Sonatas cycle for Chandos.
A former student of Pierre Sancan at the Paris Conservatoire, Bavouzet was invited by Sir George Solti to give his debut with the Orchestre de Paris in 1995 and is widely considered as the Maestro’s last discovery. As well as his performing activities, Bavouzet has also recently completed a transcription for two pianos of Debussy’s Jeux, published by Durand with a foreword by Pierre Boulez. He won first prize in the International Beethoven Competition in Cologne as well as the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York in 1986.
Bavouzet is Artistic Director of the Lofoten Piano Festival in Norway.