Les artistes

Non-exhaustive list, subject to change.

Paul Badura-Skoda

A great contemporary pianist, conductor, musicologist and professor, Paul Badura-Skoda is from Vienna. Born in 1927, he started piano lessons at a very early age, deciding to become a professional musician after attending a concert by Edwin Fischer, Hans Knappertsbusch and Wilhelm Furtwängler during the war.
International concert pianist, Paul Badura-Skoda has a pronounced predilection for Johannes Brahms and Frederic Chopin, but always comes back to his Viennese loves, which he deepens through meticulous exploration of manuscripts.
Musicologist, he has published numerous critical works, as well as several authoritative books. Finally, as a professor, he explains: “Before playing, you need to imagine a beautiful sound, and to know whether it is beautiful you need to listen to great pianists. Listen to Cortot: he never hammered on the piano”.

Yves Henry

Trained at the National Conservatory of Paris by Pierre Sancan, Yves Henry is the first French pianist to win, in 1981, the Robert Schumann International Competition. Starting in 1997, when he took on joint-direction of the Rencontres Internationales Frédéric Chopin in Nohant, he discovered through contacts with personalities like Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger or Dominique Merlet the interest of studying the pianos Chopin actually played, notably those produced by Pleyel. In 1996 he founded an association to restore one of these instruments manufactured in 1838, thanks to which he pursues his quest today of a new vision of Chopin's universe, built on the study of the composer's texts and the sound of this piano.
(photo Véronique VEDRENNE)

Jean-Marc Luisada

His success at the 1985 International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw propelled him to the forefront of the international scene. This was followed by a series of appearances throughout the world, especially in Japan where he is regularly greeted by a flock of faithful admirers. Jean-Marc Luisada is gifted with a sparkling imagination and a poetic style that his teachers (Marcel Ciampi, Denyse Rivière, Dominique Merlet, Nikita Magaloff and Paul Badura-Skoda) were careful to preserve. A passionate moviegoer, Luisada has the lightness of a carrier pigeon, the malicious smile of a child, and the secret agitation of the happy few, with eyes that glisten behind the glasses of an eternal student. An aura of exquisite kindness surrounds each of his rare appearances on the Parisian stage.

Krystian Zimerman

Krystian Zimerman spent his entire childhood in Poland where he studied piano at the Katowice Conservatory of Music. His career was launched when he won, at age 18, first prize in the prestigious International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1975.
This Chopin specialist is particularly demanding for his own recordings. He has withdrawn his own records from the market on several occasions, even though they had been greeted with enthusiasm by critics and the public. He only gives around fifty concerts a year throughout the world. For the last several years, he has travelled with his own piano and is deeply interested in the technical possibilities of the instrument. As a conductor, he has notably recorded two Chopin concertos, while conducting the orchestra from the piano in the manner of 19th-century virtuosos..

Your lecturer

The journalist Alain Duault has hosted musical programmes, written books on opera and been a professor, poet and novelist. His first collection of poems, Colorature, was published by Gallimard in 1977.
His passion for music has developed simultaneously with his love of literature. In addition to degrees in literature and social sciences, he has studied musicology. He also writes for several magazines specialised in music such as L'Avant-Scène or Opéra. Author of a book on Chopin published by Actes Sud, he has produced the complete works of Chopin for television. He is also president of the Fêtes Romantiques de Nohant, as well as the Rencontres Internationales Frédéric Chopin. He is the ideal guide for our “pilgrimage” in the footsteps of the maestro...