Jean-Guihen Queyras
“Jean-Guihen Queyras was the elegant cello soloist, his tones urbane and mellow, his articulation sparkling…” – Birmingham Post.net, June 2010
“Mr. Queyras produces a warm, dark tone, animated by his flexible, expressive use of vibrato…its character, power and color make it hard to resist.” – New York Times, March 2010
Related music: Dvořák: Cello Concerto, Allegro | Jean-Guihen Queyras is a French cellist. He was born in Canada and moved with his parents to Algeria when he was 5. He then moved to France 3 years later. Long a soloist with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Jean-Guihen Queyras was profoundly influenced by working with Pierre Boulez. In March 2004, he made his debut in the main hall at Carnegie Hall in New York with Concerto Köln. In 2008, Jean-Guihen made his BBC PROMS debut, and performed at the Aldeburgh Festival to unanimous acclaim. He also appears as a guest soloist with orchestras all over the world, including London Philharmonia, Orchestre de Paris, Tonhalle Zürich, Radio-Sinfoniorchester Saarbrücken, the SWR orchestras, Prague Philharmonia, etc. He has played under Heinz Holliger, Frans Brüggen, Leonard Slatkin, Oliver Knussen, Bruno Weil and András Ligeti, among others. An enthusiastic chamber musician, Jean-Guihen Queyras performs alongside Emmanuel Pahud, Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov and Alexandre Tharaud. In 2004, he founded the Arcanto Quartet with Tabea Zimmermann, Antje Weithaas and Daniel Sepec. Being a professor at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, he has also been invited as a resident artist of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and is one of the Artistic Directors of the Rencontres Musicales de Haute-Provence. Jean-Guihen Queyras has recorded for Harmonia Mundi. His discography is distinguished by a musical eclecticism, and has particular focus on repertoire for solo cello, which articulately demonstrates the exceptional narrative and expressive force of the monodic instrument. Following the success of his much anticipated recording of Bach’s complete CelloSuites (2008) for which he received immediate acclaim by the French press (CD of the month in Diapason, CHOC du Monde de la Musique, etc.), his further recording, a Debussy-Poulenc CD with pianist Alexandre Tharaud, was awarded the Diapason d’Or de l’Année in 2008. Other CDs include Schubert’s ‘Arpeggione’alongside works by Berg and Webern (Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’, BBC Music Magazine ‘Chamber Music Choice’, ‘Strad Selection’, Scherzo ‘E’ for Exceptional), Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Prague Philharmonia under the baton of Jiří Bĕlohlávek (BBC Radio 3 CD of the week), and Haydn and Monn’s cello concertos performed on a period instrument with the Freiburger Barockorchester, praised in both The Independent on Sunday and the Saturday Telegraph as “the definitive baroque version”. In November 2002, he received the City of Toronto Glenn Gould International Protégé Prize in Music, awarded to him by Pierre Boulez and the Glenn Gould Foundation. In March 2008, he was named ‘Instrumental Soloist of the Year’ at the Victoires de la Musique Classique, while in November of the same year he was voted ‘Artist of the Year’ by the readers of Diapason magazine. Jean-Guihen’s repertoire also encompasses more recent works; he commissioned six composers (Kurtag, Harvey, Mochizuki, Amy, Nodaïra & Fedele) to write an ‘echo’ to each of the six Bach Suites for Solo Cello, in a project called ‘Six Suites, Six Echos’, which he has performed in such prestigious venues as the Konzerthaus in Berlin, Hamburg’s Musikhalle and the Cité de la Musique in Paris. He also gave the world premieres of Bruno Mantovani’s concerto with the Saarbrücken Radio Sinfonie Orchestra, and Phillippe Schoeller’s Wind’s Eyes with the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden and Freiburg. Since November 2005, Jean-Guihen Queyras has played a cello made by Gioffredo Cappa in 1696, on loan from Mécénat Musical Société Générale.
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