Ten events, eighteen concerts

A soloist on the international stage and a winner of the Victoires de la musique, Claire-Marie Le Guay has appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Philharmonie de Paris, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the La Roque d'Anthéron festival and the Klavier-Festival Ruhr. A prizewinner of several international competitions, she brings the same commitment to recital, to chamber music — with François Salque, Amaury Coeytaux, Magali Mosnier and the Modigliani Quartet — and to concerto work with many orchestras: the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich, the Camerata Salzburg, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Kremerata Baltica, the New Japan Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and the Weimar Staatskapelle, under Daniel Barenboim and Louis Langrée, with whom she recorded the Liszt, Ravel and Schulhoff concertos.

Her extensive discography is praised by the critics; Gramophone has called it a “masterly contribution”. Decca has issued three boxed sets of her recordings, gathering Haydn, Mozart and Liszt as well as Ravel, Gubaidulina and Escaich.

With the release of Joies de l'âme in 2021 she returned to Liszt, whose music first brought her to public attention at nineteen. After Voyage en Russie and Schubert Wanderer with François Salque, she returns to the studio with Bach, écouter la lumière, her second album devoted to the composer.

Her broad repertoire includes the music of her own time: Thierry Escaich, who has dedicated several works to her and of whom she is among the most faithful interpreters; Sofia Gubaidulina, whose piano pieces and Introitus concerto she recorded with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra; and Guillaume Connesson, Henri Dutilleux and Bruno Mantovani.

After studying at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris she continued her training at the Lake Como piano foundation, of which she is a laureate, with Dmitri Bashkirov, Alicia de Larrocha and Andreas Staier, and in Berlin with Daniel Barenboim.

Teaching matters greatly to her: since 2001 she has taught at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris and at the Académie de musique française of the École normale Alfred-Cortot. An Eisenhower Fellow in 2015 and artistic director of the Dinard music festival from 2018 to 2023, she worked with the Opéra de Dijon from 2012 to 2020 on developing young audiences.

In residence at the théâtre du Chesnay since 2019, she is the author of three books: La Vie est plus belle en musique (Flammarion, 2018), C'est la nuit qu'il est beau de croire à la lumière (Flammarion, 2022) and, with Erik Orsenna, Que la joie demeure, vivre avec Bach (Albin Michel, 2026), published alongside her recording Bach, écouter la lumière, whose programme is closely bound up with the writing of the book.

Praised for his “brilliance and maturity” by the Guardian and for an eclectic, daring repertoire, the Russian-Lithuanian pianist Lukas Geniušas is invited to give recitals in the world's most prestigious halls: Wigmore Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Salle Gaveau, the Frick Collection in New York and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, as well as at festivals such as the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, the Verbier Festival, La Roque d'Anthéron and the Ruhr Piano Festival.

He performs with leading orchestras worldwide: the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, the NHK Symphony, the Singapore Symphony, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Northern Sinfonia, alongside conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Tugan Sokhiev, Oksana Lyniv, Kristiina Poska, Maxim Emelyanychev, Andrey Boreyko, Dima Slobodeniouk, Andris Poga and Rafael Payare.

A passionate chamber musician, he plays regularly with the violinist Aylen Pritchin, with his wife the pianist Anna Geniushene and with the soprano Asmik Grigorian, in Europe's most prestigious series: the Salzburg and Aix-en-Provence festivals, the Berlin Philharmonie, the opera houses of Zurich, Geneva and Frankfurt, La Scala in Milan and the Vienna Konzerthaus.

His recording of the complete version of Rachmaninov's First Piano Sonata, made at the composer's Swiss residence on his own piano, received five stars in BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone, and was awarded Diapason's “CD of the month” and Classica's “Choc”. It is only one title in a large and unanimously acclaimed discography, which has brought him the Diapason d'or de l'année for the Prokofiev sonatas and the Gramophone CD of the Year for Dissonance, with Asmik Grigorian. His two-piano album Hallelujah Junction, with Anna Geniushene, earned him a second Diapason d'or de l'année in 2025.

Born in Moscow in 1990, he graduated from the Moscow Chopin Music College and the Moscow Conservatoire. A prizewinner at international competitions, he took the silver medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition in 2015 and at the International Chopin Competition in 2010.

Winner of the 2025 Clara Haskil International Competition, where he took both the Clara Haskil Prize and the Audience Prize, Paul Lecocq is emerging as one of the most gifted pianists of his generation. He is invited by prestigious festivals and concert series: La Roque d'Anthéron, Auvers-sur-Oise, Les Pianissimes, Piano en Valois, Piano-Piano, the SMAC in Marseille and the Deià festival in Mallorca.

He performs both in recital and as a soloist with orchestra, notably with the Zermatt Festival Orchestra, the Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra and the Euregio Chamber Orchestra. Besides the Clara Haskil Competition he is a prizewinner of the Pierre Barbizet, Piano Campus and Euregio Piano Award competitions, and distinguished himself at the Long-Thibaud Competition in 2022. In 2025 he was also a laureate of the Auvers-sur-Oise festival foundation and of the Fondation de France.

After ten years of study with Christine Fonlupt at the Saint-Maur-des-Fossés regional conservatoire, he has since 2022 continued his training at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris in the class of Claire Désert and Romano Pallottini, where he also pursues composition, keyboard harmony, analysis and chamber music. He is studying at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Tuija Hakkila in 2025-2026.

A passionate chamber musician, he founded the Pierrot duo with the pianist Martin Jaspard and works regularly with the cellist Léo Léna. He has also been guided by Elisabeth Leonskaja, Anne Queffélec, François-Frédéric Guy, Bernard d'Ascoli and the Trio Wanderer.

Involved from childhood with the Petites Mains Symphoniques association, through which he took part in more than a hundred and fifty concerts, he gained solid stage experience very early. Curious about every repertoire, he works with contemporary composers such as Jörg Widmann, Édith Lejet and Fabien Touchard. Early music also occupies a large part of his artistic practice, and he cultivates both the piano and the harpsichord.

François-Frédéric Guy pursues an international career alongside the greatest conductors — Philippe Jordan, Kent Nagano, Daniel Harding, Esa-Pekka Salonen — with prestigious orchestras: the Wiener Symphoniker, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Munich Philharmonic, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

Curious about the music of his own time, he champions many contemporary composers and regularly gives world premieres. He recently premiered Tristan Murail's concerto L'Œil du cyclone in Paris, London, Hamburg and Tokyo, and recorded an album devoted to pieces by Marc Monnet and by Tristan Murail, coupled with Debussy's Preludes.

He is invited to sit on the juries of major international competitions — the Queen Elisabeth in Belgium, Busoni, Dubai, Shanghai — and gives masterclasses at prestigious institutions: the Lieven foundation in Vienna, Villecroze, the Bibliothèque La Grange-Fleuret and the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris.

Since 2012 he has regularly conducted from the piano: the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, the Royal Liège Philharmonic, the Orchestre national de Lille and Sinfonia Varsovia; in September 2022 he became music director of the Swiss ensemble Microcosme. In 2025 he was reunited with Philippe Jordan in Munich with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.

His recent concerts have taken him to Paris in recital and with orchestra, to Wigmore Hall in London, to Portugal where he conducted the five Beethoven concertos and the two by Chopin from the keyboard, and to Denmark, Switzerland and Japan with the NHK Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared in Turkey, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Hong Kong, where he played and conducted the five Beethoven concertos with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

The release of his boxed set of the 32 Beethoven sonatas on La Dolce Volta, in February 2027, will be accompanied by numerous recitals and complete cycles in France, Canada and Asia, as well as concerts with orchestra.

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Barry Douglas has built an exceptional international career since winning the gold medal at the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow in 1986. Artistic director of Camerata Ireland, the only all-Ireland orchestra, and of the Clandeboye Festival, he continues to celebrate his Irish heritage while maintaining a full international touring schedule.

In recent seasons he has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Orchestre national de Lille, the Nuremberg Symphony and the Staatskapelle Halle, among others. He marked the thirtieth anniversary of his Tchaikovsky Competition victory by performing complete cycles of the Tchaikovsky piano concertos with the National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin and the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast. Also known for championing contemporary repertoire, he gave the premiere of Kevin Volans's fourth piano concerto with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and the European premiere of Penderecki's piano concerto.

Much in demand as a recitalist and chamber musician, he has performed worldwide, from the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican and Wigmore Hall to the Verbier Festival, the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing and the Shanghai Grand Theatre.

An exclusive Chandos artist, he recently completed a six-album recording of Brahms's complete works for solo piano. The International Record Review wrote of it: “this is Brahms playing of the highest integrity and absolute authority. This cycle is on course to become a benchmark version.” His current projects focus on the solo piano works of Schubert, Tchaikovsky and Liszt. Also for Chandos, he explores Irish folk music through his own arrangements.

In 1999 he founded the chamber orchestra Camerata Ireland to showcase the finest young musicians of Northern Ireland and the Republic. Beyond the pursuit of musical excellence, one of the orchestra's aims is to advance the Irish peace process by encouraging dialogue and collaboration through its music education programmes.

In January 2021 Barry Douglas was made a CBE for services to music and to community relations. He had already been awarded an OBE in 2002.

The pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja is one of the most important performers of our time. In 2020 she received the International Classical Music Award for lifetime achievement. A few years earlier she was named “Priestess of Art”, the highest distinction of Georgia, her native country. Austria, her adopted country, has awarded her the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, First Class, in recognition of outstanding services to the country's culture. In 2024 London awarded her the Wigmore Hall Medal.

The legendary pianist Sviatoslav Richter recognised and encouraged her extraordinary talent very early, and fostered her artistic development. Their collaboration, which grew into friendship, continued until Richter's death in 1997.

In 1978 Elisabeth Leonskaja left the Soviet Union for Austria and marked the beginning of her great career with a memorable concert at the Salzburg Festival. Since then she has appeared as a soloist worldwide with the finest conductors and orchestras, while giving recitals in all the major concert halls of Europe.

Constantly searching for the essence of the works and feeling committed to music as a whole, Elisabeth Leonskaja holds chamber music particularly dear, alternating it with her solo work. A long musical friendship bound her to the Alban Berg Quartet, and the recordings they made together are considered legendary.

Numerous awards mark her extensive discography, including the prestigious Caecilia Prize and the Diapason d'or. She has recorded the complete piano sonatas of Schubert and Mozart. 2024 saw the release of the Schumann and Grieg piano concertos with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra under Michael Sanderling. Her latest solo album is devoted to the Second Viennese School: Schoenberg, Webern and Berg. With orchestra, she released Beethoven's “Emperor” concerto in 2025, paired with the same composer's quintet for piano and winds.

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