Jean-Guihen Queyras

Biography

Long a soloist with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Jean-Guihen Queyras was profoundly influenced by working with Pierre Boulez. His discography, distinguished by a musical eclecticism, includes works by Haydn (on period instruments) as well as Dvořák and 20th-century composers.
Extremely receptive to contemporary music, Jean-Guihen Queyras has premiered concertos by Ivan Fedele, Gilbert Amy, Bruno Mantovani and Philippe Schoeller (Wind’s Eyes), some of which will be recorded for harmonia mundi in late 2008. His solo recitals at the Triphony Hall in Tokyo and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris gave a contemporary resonance to earlier repertoire. In the same spirit, he associated the Bach cello suites with Echoes commissioned from Kurtág, Amy, Fedele, Nodaira, Mochizuki and Harvey, a project which enjoyed success at the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Musikhalle in Hambourg and the Cité de la Musique in Paris.
Jean-Guihen Queyras appears as a guest soloist with orchestras all over the world (London Philharmonia, Orchestre de Paris, Tokyo SO, Radio-Sinfoniorchester Saarbrücken, the SWR orchestras, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Prague Philharmonia, Zürich Tonhalle Orchestra, The Hallé, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra...) and has played under Heinz Holliger, Frans Brüggen, Jiří Bĕlohlávek, Leonard Slatkin, Oliver Knussen, Bruno Weil, András Ligeti and David Stern, among others.
An enthusiastic chamber musician, he performs alongside Emmanuel Pahud, Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov and Alexandre Tharaud, and founded the Arcanto Quartet with Tabea Zimmermann, Antje Weithaas and Daniel Sepec in 2004.
2008 was a particularly important year in the career of Jean-Guihen Queyras: in March he was named 'Instrumental Soloist of the Year' at the Victoires de la Musique Classique, while in November he was voted 'Artist of the Year' by the readers of Diapason magazine.
Jean-Guihen Queyras is a professor at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg-im-Breisgau and joint artistic director of the Rencontres Musicales de Haute-Provence (Forcalquier).
Since November 2005 Jean-Guihen Queyras has played a cello by Gioffredo Cappa dating from 1696, lent by Mécénat Musical Société Générale.