Jonathan plays under the baton of conductors such as Stéphane Denève, Jonathon Heyward, Thomas Dausgaard, Howard Griffiths, Sascha Goetzel, Pascal Rophé, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Roderick Cox, Joshua Weilerstein, Kirill Karabits, Lawrence Renes, Michael Schønwandt, Peter Oundjian, Lio Kuokman, Alexandre Bloch, Gábor Káli, Daniel Raiskin, Hugh Wolff, Fan Tao, with orchestras such as the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Brussels Philharmonic, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, European Union Youth Orchestra, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Korean National Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, NOSPR Katowice, Slovak Philharmonic, Macao Orchestra, Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, Orchestre National de Bordeaux, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre National de Montpellier, and Croatian Radio and Television Orchestra.
Fournel is signed to the award-winning label Alpha. A Brahms album was released in October 2021 receiving rave reviews from major media internationally. In France, the album was awarded the much-coveted Diapason Découverte award and Telerama’s ffff. A Mozart album, featuring Concertos Nos. 18 and 21 with the Mozarteumorchester and Howard Griffiths, was then released in February 2024 to great critical acclaim. This album is part of the New Generation Mozart Soloists collection sponsored by Orpheum Stiftung with the complete Mozart concertos featuring several soloists. Jonathan’s second solo album on Alpha Classics, dedicated to Chopin and Szymanowski, was released in August 2024. The album was appointed Choc Classica in France and received rave reviews.
Jonathan started studying the piano at 7 in his hometown of Sarreguemines in the East of France before joining the Strasbourg Conservatoire. At 12, he was admitted to the Saarbrücken Musikhochschule in Germany in Prof. Robert Leonardy and Jean Micault’s studios. He was then admitted to the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique at 16 working with Brigitte Engerer, Bruno Rigutto, Claire Désert and Michel Dalberto and graduating with honors 5 years later. In September 2016, he joined Louis Lortie and Avo Kouyoumdjian’s studios at the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth Brussels for another 5 years.
Chamber music has also always been an important part of his music-making, performing with such musicians as Gautier Capuçon, Augustin Dumay, Simone Lamsma, Vassilena Serafimova, Lorenzo Gatto, Victor Julien-Laferrière.