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Jean-Efflam Bavouzet
Katie Cardell-Oliver
Brooke Newton
François Guyard
Jakub Watrobski
“…he makes you listen to music as if you are discovering it Eureka!-style: yes, that’s what the composer must have meant.”
(Financial Times)
Award-winning pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet enjoys a prolific recording and international concert career. He regularly works with The Cleveland, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony and London Philharmonic orchestras, NHK Symphony Orchestra, and collaborates with many renowned conductors including Vladimir Jurowski, Gianandrea Noseda, François-Xavier Roth, Vasily Petrenko, Ludovic Morlot, Edward Gardner, Louis Langrée, and Sir Andrew Davis.
Engagements during the 2023/24 season include Les Siècles under François Xavier-Roth, performing both Ravel concerti with Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Dalia Stasevska, National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin, as well as Kyoto Symphony Orchestra under Junichi Hirokami with Bartók’s fiendish Piano Concerto No.2. He also appears with Manchester Camerata at the Enescu Festival in Romania with Gábor Takacs-Nagy and will perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 with Karol Szymanowski Filharmonia in Kraków, under the baton of Antoni Wit.
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In recital, Bavouzet continues his three-year residency at Wigmore Hall, titled ‘Autour de Debussy’, which includes solo recitals and chamber appearances with Steven Isserlis, Quatuor Danel and Orsino Ensemble among others. His solo recital at Wigmore Hall in February shall consist of a unique pairing of Debussy, Liszt and Massenet, a programme which he shall also be taking to Sage Gateshead, SJE Oxford and Hamamatsu in Japan. Other recitals include a Rachmaninov-centred two-piano performance with the Chamber Music Society at New York’s Lincoln Centre.
Bavouzet’s previous notable performances include Carnegie Hall with London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonie de Paris with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, and a BBC Proms appearance with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Nicholas Collon. He has recently appeared with Budapest Festival Orchestra, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, play-directed a three concerto programme with Seattle Symphony Orchestra and toured the Baltics with Manchester Camerata. Bavouzet is a frequent guest of the Verbier festival, at which he has also been interviewed several times. In summer 2023, Bavouzet successfully completed a recital tour, performing at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York, Bravo! Vail Festival and Aspen, finishing across the Atlantic at Finland’s Mänttä Music Festival and St Ursanne in Switzerland.
Bavouzet records exclusively for Chandos. His most recent release, A Musical Tribute to Pierre Sancan with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Yan Pascal Tortelier, won the Gramophone Editor’s Choice and Diapason d’Or awards. His complete Haydn Piano Sonatas series has been named a modern benchmark by Gramophone and his The Beethoven Connection received numerous accolades from magazines including the New York Times, BBC Music Magazine and Choc-Classica. Ongoing cycles include the complete Mozart Piano Concertos with Manchester Camerata and Gábor Takács-Nagy, the fourth volume of which was nominated for a Gramophone Award in 2020. In September of the same year, the complete Beethoven Concertos were released with Swedish Chamber Orchestra play-directed by Bavouzet.
Other recordings include Bartók’s Piano Concerti and the complete Prokofiev Piano Concerti with BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda – the latter won the Concerto category of the 2014 Gramophone Awards. Under Yan-Pascal Tortelier, he recorded Stravinsky’s Complete Works for Piano and Orchestra with Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and the Ravel Piano concerti with BBC Symphony Orchestra which won both a Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine award. Bavouzet’s recordings have also garnered Diapason d’Or and Choc de l’Année awards.
Bavouzet has worked closely with Sir Georg Solti, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Zoltan Kocsis, György Kurtág, Maurice Ohana, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Bruno Mantovani and Jörg Widmann and is also a champion of lesser-known French music, notably that of Gabriel Pierné and Albéric Magnard. He is the International Chair in Piano at the Royal Northern College of Music and an Advisory Board member of the Pianofest in the Hamptons. In 2012 he was ICMA Artist of the Year and in 2008 he was awarded Beijing’s first ever Elite Prize for his Beethoven complete sonata series.
HarrisonParrott represents Jean-Efflam Bavouzet for worldwide general management.
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“Jean-Efflam Bavouzet played Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with dry brilliance and the cool sang-froid of the outrageously talented.”
“Performances of exquisite sensibilité, delivered with the most subtly varied, beautiful sound.”
“Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s ongoing survey [of Haydn piano sonatas] on Chandos is one of the glories of the 21st-century record industry, nine volumes and counting of playing that is poised and polished, as well as ideally flamboyant and aptly witty.”
“Bavouzet’s expressive naturalness is captivating: he has a thinking head, alert hands and a heart that knows how to be moved by modulations so fleeting that they barely leave time to marvel.”
“Bavouzet takes us into the realm of the sublime… a reading [of Beethoven] etched in empyrean majesty. It’s high minded, lofty, inspiring, and ennobling….”
“Bavouzet’s set [of Beethoven Concertos] remains a breath of fresh air, and I’ll go back to it to rediscover the celebratory joy of these works”
“For one of countless examples of Bavouzet’s mastery, listen to how beautifully he paces the heart-touching middle movement Andante of [Beethoven’s] Piano Concerto No.4. He has you holding your breath…”
… he conveys the audacity and cunning virtuosity that must have characterised the proud young Beethoven’s own piano-playing.”
“… his cultivated piano-playing is so polished that precious few of his colleagues could claim superiority in purely technical terms. All in all, [Beethoven: the Complete Piano Concertos] are keenly intelligent performances, brimful of spirit and energy…”
“Throughout [The Beethoven Connection CD], Bavouzet affords all the same poetic exactitude, emotional intelligence and musical fidelity that marked out his three-volume Beethoven Sonata cycle for Chandos. The result is a fascinating and satisfying compendium…”
“ [‘The Beethoven Connection’] recording embodies a brilliant idea, brilliantly carried out… The sweetness and transparency of the opening Allegro [Dussek] has winning charm; the finale luxuriates in its own easy virtuosity.”
“The latest recording, from Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and the Manchester Camerata on Chandos, is terrifically alert and alive.”
“Bavouzet is an artist of true interpretive gift, born to the stage and to the spontaneity each moment has to offer.”
“The breadth of pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s repertoire is remarkable. His interpretations of Bartók’s piano concertos have gained much attention. Bringing the third to the Ulster Hall, Bavouzet’s playing was nothing short of spectacular.”
“His range of colours is [wide], without any self-conscious attempt to ‘orchestrate’, and his sparkle and caprice are especially delicious in the finale [of Haydn’s E flat Sonata].”
“There’s no better interpreter of Haydn today than Bavouzet: he has the secret of unlocking both his individuality and sheer quality.”
“Bavouzet inspires, entertains and embodies the playfulness and grace of Mozart’s much-loved works. A very fine recording.”
“The Frenchman, whose complete Debussy piano works is one of the stand-out recording projects of recent times, plays with the ‘fluid transparency’ of the composer himself […]”
“Despite the monstrous virtuosity of [Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand] that easily gives the illusion of a score for two hands, the touch of his left hand is quite capable of softness in the midrange and treble registers, and a great power in the lower register.”
“The French pianist confers the appropriate speed of a frenzied cavalcade in [Schumann’s Piano Sonata No.3] Prestissimo possibile conclusive, strewn with furious trémolos, and preserves everywhere an exemplary clarity. Superb!” (5 stars)
“Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is one of the finest pianists of his generation and this evening we heard him in Ravel’s piano concerto for his left hand. Ravel’s concerto is highly dramatic, and played with Bavouzet’s virtuosity, the feathery strikes, and the stomping jazz rhythms gave it an audible impression of being composed for both hands.”
“The Frenchman knows exactly what he is doing: the finale [of Schumann’s Piano Sonata No.3] is a masterclass in precision and clarity, even at speed, its more lyrical writing brought fully alive.”
“Ever a supremely intelligent musician, Bavouzet brings clarity, gentleness and urgency to all, with a sense of distilled struggle in [Schumann’s] five Gesänge der Frühe (Songs at Dawn).”
“A faultless disc to bring great joy. [Haydn Piano Sonatas, Volume 7].”
“[In Debussy’s L’Isle joyeuse] Bavouzet celebrates one last time his overwhelming pianistic skills, with technical mastery, crystal-clear structuring and above all, transparency.”
“Bavouzet binds clarity with emotion as well as with sophistication and charm. He proves to be a powerful stylist, articulating Haydn’s ideas with perfect understanding and empathy, outlining the phrases with witty precision[…]”
“In [Debussy’s] Feux d’artifice Bavouzet fires off a stunningly breath-taking pianistic firework to leave the public open-mouthed. After this dazzling recital the enthusiastic public was taken to the L’isle joyeuse ‑paradisiac!”
“A five-star experience was the appearance of French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet…he is one of the world’s outstanding pianists in French repertoire”
“…he was magnificent in Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand, giving a louche bravura to the music’s many moods. Most pianists play the opening theme sotto voce, to give themselves the best chance of making the following crescendo as mighty as possible. Bavouzet flung it out with statuesque nobility, judging he had power enough to spare, and he was right.”
“His performance of this effervescent composition was without technical flaw. The opening Allegramente crackled with energy”
“The final romp of a finale exuded wit and charm, driving rhythms prevailing throughout with the pianist’s touch ranging from utmost delicacy to the incisive precision of the syncopated staccato chords”
“Bavouzet injected a sense of mystery to the fantasy section and made smart work of Mozart’s rather flashy cadenza.”
“The music is lit with quick wit, intelligence, and shafts of tenderness”
“there are few pianists with the recreative fantasy that Bavouzet brings to just about everything he plays.”
“The solo playing sparkles, the orchestra is alive with detail, everything a delight.”
“Assured in his own art, he commands a fully matured artistry, lacking neither subtlety or dynamism.”
“Expansive, beautifully realized, but never lacking in virtuosity. This was music-making that was controlled but seemingly spontaneous and on occasion, electrifying. Little wonder that the capacity audience jumped to its feet at the end. I can’t remember a performance so completely satisfying.”
“Pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, first heard here playing Prokofiev, mirrored his caffeinated 2010 debut with Ravel of the most vibrant, eye-opening sort. In the outer movements, Bavouzet wielded touches both hard-edged and feathery, imbuing Ravel’s ceaselessly active music with the strongest doses of whatever character it demanded. Yet never did he fail as a collaborator; Throughout, the pianist mimicked and engaged the harp, woodwinds and strings in pointed conversation. The pinnacle was the Adagio. Out of its touching solo theme, Bavouzet and orchestra crafted a lavish and ultimately hugely impassioned episode, one that developed naturally and boasted limpid contributions from soloists all over the ensemble. Their music contained not just all the color absent from the region but also the warmth.”
“This was, I thought, a Beethoven performance of undeniable greatness: not different for the sake of it, but asserting its – and Beethoven’s – difference through a Pollini-like re-examination of the material(…) All Beethoven performances should, if only briefly, restore one’s faith in humanity; this one did.”
“Jean-Efflam Bavouzet played the solo in Liszt’s second piano concerto with virtuoso panache and alertness to its changing moods, from tenderness to bombast.”
“The evening’s highlight was Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s dashing account of the bimanual Ravel Piano Concerto, which combined technical facility with enormous musical sensibility to create a memorable performance.”
“The lovely opening to the A flat Sonata was beautifully done, with just the right spaciousness and clarity of fingering. It was in the final movement – by turns poetically reflective and fugally stern – that Bavouzet rose most fully to the challenge, creating momentum in the final pages that seemed to storm the heavens.”