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Gautier Capuçon

Cello

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“It’s the rare performer who can bring such ease and refinement to this music, while still giving everything he plays a sense of dramatic urgency.”
(San Francisco Chronicle)

Gautier Capuçon is a true 21^st century ambassador for the cello. Performing internationally with many of the world’s foremost conductors and instrumentalists, he is also a passionate ambassador for the Orchestre à l’École Association which brings classical music to more than 40,000 school children across France. In January 2022 Gautier Capuçon launched his own Foundation to support young and talented musicians at the beginning of their career and increasing his commitment to young artists. A multiple award winner, he is acclaimed for his expressive musicianship, exuberant virtuosity, and for the deep sonority of his 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello “L’Ambassadeur”.

In summer 2020, mid-pandemic, Capuçon brought music directly into the lives of families across the length and breadth of France, free of charge, during his musical odyssey ‘Un été en France’. During July 2022, for the third edition of this project, he performs 15 concerts across the nation including Autun, Clairveaux, Eauz, and his hometown of Chambéry. He also showcases 14 young musicians and 8 young dancers within his concert presentations.

Committed to exploring and expanding the cello repertoire, Capuçon performs an extensive array of works each season and regularly premieres new commissions. Current projects include collaborations with Lera Auerbach, Danny Elfman and Thierry Escaich.

In the 2022/23 season Capuçon appears with, amongst others, the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Andris Nelsons, Chicago Symphony/Manfred Honeck, San Francisco Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas, Bayerische Rundfunk/Marie Jacquot, Leipzig Gewandhaus/Andris Nelsons, NDR Hamburg/Pablo Heras-Casado, Munich Philharmonic/Lorenzo Viotti, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich/Christoph Eschenbach, Orchestre de Paris/Klaus Mäkelä, and the Czech Philharmonic/Semyon Bychkov. He is the Curating Artist at the Konzerthaus Dortmund, and in addition, Capuçon plays at festivals worldwide, including the Salzburg, Grafenegg, and Verbier festivals.

In recital Capucon pairs regularly with Frank Braley and Jérôme Ducros – while other chamber music partners include Nikolai Lugansky and Gabriela Montero as well as Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Lisa Batiashvili, Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, Andreas Ottensamer, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Daniil Trifonov, Yuja Wang, the Labèque sisters and the Artemis, Ébène and Hagen quartets.

Recording exclusively for Erato (Warner Classics), Capuçon has won multiple awards and holds an extensive discography. His latest album Sensations released in Autumn 2022, explores short pieces from a range of different genres. His album of romantic works by Brahms and Rachmaninoff in collaboration with Andreas Ottensammer and Yuja Wang is also released in Autumn 2022 by Deutsche Grammophon. 2020’s Warner Classics album Emotions features music from composers such as Debussy, Schubert and Elgar and has achieved gold status in France, remaining at Number 1 in the charts for over 30 weeks and selling more than 110,000 copies. Earlier recordings include concertos by Shostakovich (The Mariinsky Orchestra/Valery Gergiev) and Saint-Saëns (Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Lionel Bringuier); the complete Beethoven Sonatas with Frank Braley; Schubert’s String Quintet with the Ébène Quartet; Intuition with Orchestre de Chambre de Paris/Douglas Boyd and Jérôme Ducros; an album of Schumann works, recorded live with Martha Argerich, Renaud Capuçon and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe/Bernard Haitink; Beethoven Piano Trios with Renaud Capuçon and Frank Braley; Chopin and Franck sonatas with Yuja Wang; and a solo album featuring Bach, Dutilleux and Kodaly as well as a “Best of” recording on occasion of his 40^th birthday.

Capuçon has been featured on DVD in live performances with the Wiener Philharmoniker/Andris Nelsons (Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No.1) Berliner Philharmoniker/Gustavo Dudamel (Haydn Cello Concerto No.1) and with Lisa Batiashvili, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and Christian Thielemann (Brahms’s Concerto for Violin and Cello). A household name in his native France, he also appears on screen and online in shows such as Prodiges, Now Hear This, and The Artist Academy, and is a guest presenter on Radio Classique in the show Les Carnets de Gautier Capuçon.

Born in Chambéry, Capuçon began playing the cello at the age of five. He studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris with Philippe Muller and Annie Cochet-Zakine, and later with Heinrich Schiff in Vienna. Now, he performs with world leading orchestras, works with conductors such as Semyon Bychkov, Christoph Eschenbach, Andrès Orozco-Estrada, Pablo Heras-Casado, Klaus Mäkelä, Andris Nelsons, and Christian Thielemann, and collaborates with contemporary composers including Lera Auerbach, Karol Beffa, Esteban Benzecry, Nicola Campogrande, Qigang Chen, Bryce Dessner, Jérôme Ducros, Henry Dutilleux, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Manoury, Bruno Mantovani, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, and Jörg Widmann.

Gallery

Berlin Philharmonic Shostakovich © Berlin Philharmonic

Schumann Cello Concerto Paris Gautier Capucon : Yannick Nezet Seguin © Gautier Capucon

Gautier Capuçon | Dvořák: Cello Concerto

“And no matter what he’s playing, Capuçon likes to push the technical limits of his instrument, dispatching the challenging sul ponticello and flautando passages in this modern-flavored work with flair.”

Backtrack, May 2022

“…the soloist (Capucon) is something like a diamond in a ring, supported by and glinting onto its setting.”

New York Times, April 2022

“Capuçon introduced Kodály’s horribly challenging Sonata for solo cello op.8 […] He was magisterial. His technical command almost had a personality of its own. In the first movement there was muscularity, with a big vibrato, and a great emotional range. He brought rhythmic flexibility and a sense of dramatic improvisation to the central Adagio, and wildness to the final Allegro molto vivace, maintaining clarity in extremis.”

The Strad, November 2021

“Capuçon shaped long phrases as if he were a singer whose breath never needed topping up”

(The Guardian, January 2020)

“Gautier Capuçon provides the best of both worlds, creating a profound sense of a lone figure lost in his thoughts during the first two movements, before suggesting an emotional rejuvenation in the finale…”

(BBC Music Magazine, April 2019)

“Cellist Gautier Capuçon brought his stunningly beautiful tone to “Rococo” Variations, adding what sounded like new glory to every phrase.”

(LA Times, December 2018)

“Variations on a Rococo Theme were handled with similar sensitivity, Capuçon delivering the variations with an easy, singing elegance when wrapped in winds, and hinting at untapped strength in his growling low register. He shimmied up and down the instrument with sinuous grace, his lyrical moments infused with warmth and his high register crystalline and precise”

(Limelight Magazine, September 2018)

“Debussy’s Cello Sonata took on an array of tonal shades, with Capuçon attuned equally to the work’s narrative thread and witty caprice”

(The Strad, June 2018)

“It is a musically rich journey…we experience jaw-dropping virtuosity in Popper’s Elfentanz … emotionally convincing outpourings in Dvořák’s Leave Me Alone … Along with Elgar’s Salut d’amour there is a profundity that has to be heard to be appreciated in Casals’ Song of the Birds. Capuçon manages to combine a beautiful cello sound from his 1701 Goffriller that comes as close to the human voice as imaginable with a subtlety of expression and refined, stylish playing. The recording is slick, professional and immaculately balanced.”

(The Strad, April 2018)

“That Capuçon is among the greatest of cellists was announced by the passionate projection of his amazing sound from the start…Capuçon is an exceptional chamber musician too, so it was hardly surprising to find him fine-tuned to his orchestral colleagues.”

(The Arts Desk, February 2018)

“Gautier Capuçon performed Dvořáks Cello Concerto with the noblest tone and brilliant phrasing…”

(Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, June 2017)

“…the First Cello Concerto (Shostakovich) might be anti-heroic, it nevertheless calls for heroism from a soloist. Gautier Capucon delivered it in spades, in a performance of fierce concentration and taut virtuosity. His broad tonal palette was on display right from the start and ran the whole gamut”

(Bachtrack, May 2017)

“In a concert of extraordinary sophistication, dynamic daring and supple phrasing, it was the purity of Gautier Capuçon’s cello that stilled the hall … Capuçon played with grave sweetness, intensifying his tone in almost imperceptible increments. The Barbican audience has seldom been so quiet.”

(The Times, March 2017)

“It’s the rare performer who can bring such ease and refinement to this music, while still giving everything he plays a sense of dramatic urgency.”

(San Francisco Chronicle)