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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 deeply committed to education and support for young musicians from every background. In summer 2020 Capuçon brought music directly into the lives of families across the length and breadth of France during his musical odyssey ‘Un été en France’. The fifth edition of the project, featuring young musicians and dancers, takes place in July 2024. In January 2022 Gautier Capuçon launched his own Foundation to support young and talented musicians at the beginning of their career. Capucon is also a passionate ambassador for the Orchestre à l’École Association which brings classical music to more than 42,000 school children across France.

A multiple award winner, Capucon is acclaimed for his expressive musicianship, exuberant virtuosity, and for the deep sonority of his 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello “L’Ambassadeur”. He performs with world leading orchestras each season, working with conductors such as Semyon Bychkov, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Andrès Orozco-Estrada, Pablo Heras-Casado, Paavo Jarvi, Klaus Mäkelä, Andris Nelsons, and Christian Thielemann. Collaborations with contemporary composers include Lera Auerbach, Karol Beffa, Esteban Benzecry, Nicola Campogrande, Qigang Chen, Guillaume Connesson, Bryce Dessner, Richard Dubugnon, Henry Dutilleux, Danny Elfman, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Manoury, Bruno Mantovani, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm and Jörg Widmann.

Highlights of the 2023/24 season include return visits as soloist with Los Angeles Philharmonic/Young, Münchner Philharmoniker/Mehta, Orchestre Nationale de France/Macelaru and Wiener Philharmoniker/Nelsons. He is soloist on tour through Europe with Wiener Symphoniker/Popelka; and he is Artist in Residence with Dresden Philharmonic and with Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. In October 2023 he re-joins long time musical partners Lisa Batiashvili and Jean-Yves Thibaudet to make a piano trio tour crossing the USA – from Walt Disney Hall, Los Angeles to Carnegie Hall, New York. 2023/24 also sees a European tour with pianist Daniil Trifonov including concerts in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Dresden and Vienna.

Other regular chamber music partners include Frank Braley, Jérôme Ducros, Nikolai Lugansky, Gabriela Montero, as well as Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, Andreas Ottensamer, Yuja Wang, the Labèque sisters and the Ébène, Hagen and Modigliani quartets. Capuçon regularly plays at festivals worldwide including Edinburgh, Salzburg, Grafenegg and Verbier. The 2022/23 season saw the debut tour of Capucon’s cello ensemble created with his former students — Capucelli – performing in prestigious venues across Europe including Paris, Vienna and Geneva.

Recording exclusively for Erato (Warner Classics), Capuçon has won multiple awards and holds an extensive discography featuring major concerto and chamber music literature. His album Destination Paris, released in November 2023, celebrates French music from classical repertoire to film scores. 2020’s Warner Classics album Emotions features music from composers such as Debussy, Schubert and Elgar and has achieved gold status in France. Further albums exploring short, popular pieces from a range of different genres — including Sensations (released in Autumn 2022) – have generated tens of millions of streams. Highlights of his back catalogue include the complete Beethoven Sonatas with Frank Braley; an album of Schumann works recorded live with Martha Argerich, Renaud Capuçon and Chamber Orchestra of Europe/Bernard Haitink; Chopin and Franck sonatas with Yuja Wang; and a solo album featuring Bach, Dutilleux and Kodaly to mark his 40^th birthday.

Capuçon has also been featured on DVD in live performances with Wiener Philharmoniker/Andris Nelsons (Saint-Saens’ Cello Concerto No.1) Berliner Philharmoniker/Gustavo Dudamel (Haydn’s Cello Concerto No.1) and with Lisa Batiashvili, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and Christian Thielemann (Brahms’ Concerto for Violin and Cello).

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 a household name in his native France, Capucon appears on screen and online in shows such as Prodiges, Now Hear This, Symphony Pour La Vie, and The Artist Academy, and is a guest presenter on Radio Classique in the show Les Carnets de Gautier Capuçon.

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)