Bertrand Chamayou
March 23, 1981 - Toulouse (France)
© Marco Borggreve
About
Bertrand Chamayou, one of the major pianists of the nowadays music scene, found he had a talent for the piano at the age of seven thanks to a schoolmate who asked him to take piano lessons together. As a consequence, he entered the Conservatoire of Toulouse, then the Conservatoire of Paris, where he studied with Jean-François Heisser. He also studied in London with Maria Curcio, and got in touch with Leon Fleisher, Dimitri Bashkirov and Murray Perahia.
In 1998 he won the first prize at the Kraïnev competition, in Ukraine, and in 2001 gained a solid international reputation with the fourth prize at the prestigious Long-Thibaud competition. Since then, he performed throughout the world, notably at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Conservatoire Tchaikovsky in Moscow and at the Tokyo International Forum. In 2006 he was named "Révélation soliste instrumental" (New instrumental soloist of the year) at the French Victoires de la musique classique. The same year was released his first recording, the Transcendental Etudes by Liszt, awarded "Choc du Monde de la musique" by the French critics. In 2011 he was nominated once again for the Victoires de la musique classique and was awarded "Soliste instrumental de l’année" (Instrumental soloist of the year). Then, in 2012, he won a third Victoire for his disc The Pilgrimage years (Liszt), awarded Best recording of the year.
Chamayou took part in many festivals in France and abroad, notably the Roque d’Anthéron Festival, the Piano aux Jacobins, the Folle Journée in Nantes, Lisbon and Tokyo, the domaine Forget in Quebec, Ravenna’s Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele, the Sommets musicaux de Gstaad, the Radio France-Montpellier festival, Présences…
In addition to his soloist career, Chamayou also plays chamber music, notably with Augustin Dumay, Renaud Capuçon, Antoine Tamestit, Gautier Capuçon and the Ebène and Ysaÿe Quartets among others.
His repertoire, from Schumann to Ravel passing through Mendelssohn, also includes contemporary composers such as Hersant, Dutilleux and Kurtág. Among his most recent recordings there are Frank César, with Olivier Latry, Stéphane Denève and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (2010, Naïve), and Les Années de pèlerinage (Pilgrimage years) by Liszt (2011, Naïve. Best recording of the year at the French Victoires de la musique 2012).
Bertrand Chamayou won best artist honor at the Victoire de la musique classique 2016, the French version of the Grammy Awards.