François-Frédéric Guy

François-Frédéric Guy is widely regarded first and foremost as an outstanding interpreter of the German romantics and their forebears. The way he creates musical structure in sound is unrivalled, especially evident in his interpretations of Beethoven, with whom he has a particularly intensive musical relationship. The pianist also has a special affinity with the music of Bartók, Brahms, Liszt and Prokofiev and a strong commitment to contemporary music. He has close links to composers such as Ivan Fedele, Marc Monnet, Gérard Pesson, Bruno Mantovani and Hugues Dufourt, who dedicated his masterpiece for solo piano, Erlkönig (2006), to the pianist. He has also given the premiere of works including Mantovani’s Double Concerto (2012), which he performed with the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 2013 he gave the South Korean premiere of Tristan Murail’s Le Désenchantement du monde with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.

This season François-Frédéric Guy will continue his focus on Beethoven as well as giving numerous appearances in the dual role of soloist and conductor. He will resume performing Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas in Seoul, adding to a long list of performances of the cycle, which he already completed in Washington, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Monte Carlo, Norwich, Metz and Buenos Aires. Following this, he will give a performance of the complete cello sonatas with Xavier Phillips in Tokyo at the Musashino Foundation.

He will also lead the orchestra from the piano in Beethoven’s piano concertos, which he has performed multiple times as well as recording before taking up the baton to conduct them in concert. This season he will conduct Beethoven’s Triple Concerto as well as the Symphony No. 5 as part of his residency with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, who will also perform the Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 under his direction at the Grand Théâtre de Provence. The Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife will perform a complete piano concerto cycle with the pianist, and he will also appear in the dual role of pianist/conductor with the orchestra de Limoges et du Limousin with Mozart as well as Beethoven.

As a soloist, François-Frédéric Guy will present a diverse range of repertoire with orchestras including the Orchestre National de Lyon, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, Orquestra Simfònica del Gran Teatre del Liceu and Le Concert Olympique, with whom he will tour to venues including the Berlin and Essen Philharmonies and the Flagey Brussels. He will also make his debut at the French May festival in Hong Kong.

The pianist has been a guest of orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Vienna Symphony and Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich. He has collaborated with world famous conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kazushi Ono, Marc Albrecht, Philippe Jordan, Daniel Harding, Neeme Järvi, Lionel Bringuier, Michael Tilson Thomas and Kent Nagano. In recital he has performed at the major concert halls in cities including London, Milan, Berlin, Munich, Moscow, Paris, Vienna and Washington, and at festivals including the Piano Festival in La Roque d'Anthéron, Chopin Festival in Warsaw, Beethovenfest Bonn, Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo and Cheltenham Festival.

At the heart of François-Frédéric Guy’s discography is his recording of the complete Beethoven sonatas, which was released in 2013 by Zig-Zag Territoires, who also released his acclaimed Liszt recording Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. He released his first Brahms’s three piano sonatas in 2017 on Evidence Classics. Before that, his recording of Beethoven’s cello sonatas with Xavier Phillips was released to critical acclaim, and was made Recording of the month by Gramophone as well as MusicWeb International. Autumn 2017 will see the release of the Beethoven violin sonatas, recorded with Tedi Papvrami; his project to record the complete Beethoven chamber music works for piano will be completed in the near future by the piano trios.

2017/18 season

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