Renaud Capuçon & Khatia Buniatishvili
Biography Renaud Capuçon & Khatia Buniatishvili
Khatia Buniatishvili
Born on 21 June 1987 in Tbilisi, Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and her elder sister Gvantsa were introduced to the piano at an early age by their mother, an enthusiastic music lover. Playing four handed remains one of the sisters’ favourite activities. Khatia’s extraordinary talent was recognized when she was very young. Aged six, she gave her début performance as soloist with an orchestra, and was subsequently invited to give guest performances in Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Russia, Israel and the USA. Khatia prefers not to be regarded as a child prodigy: virtuosity for its own sake does not appeal to her. Above all, she embraces pianists from earlier generations such as Rachmaninoff, Richter and Gould. She admires her “favourite pianist”, Martha Argerich, for her uniqueness and, as a consequence, does not view Argerich as someone she should try to emulate. And since she regards herself as “wholly a person of the 20th century”, Khatia does not identify so much with pianists of today. Khatia’s warm, sometimes sorrowful playing may reflect a close proximity to Georgian folk-music, which, she attests, has greatly influenced her musicality. Critics emphasize that her playing has an aura of elegant solitude and even melancholy, which she does not feel to be a negative attribute. “The piano is the blackest instrument,” she says, a “symbol of musical solitude”, which even a pianist must become accustomed to. “I have to be psychologically strong and forget the hall if I want to share it with the audience.”
During her studies at Tbilisi’s State Conservatoire, Khatia won a special prize at the Horowitz International Competition for Young Pianists in Kiev in 2003 as well as first prize at the Foundation to Assist Young Georgian Musicians competition set up by Elisabeth Leonskaya. At the 2003 Piano Competition in Tbilisi, she became acquainted with Oleg Maisenberg, who persuaded her to transfer to Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts. Winner of the Bronze Medal at the 12th Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition in 2008, she was also distinguished as the Best Performer of a Chopin piece and as Audience Favourite. Khatia Buniatishvili has given critically acclaimed solo recitals and chamber music concerts at such renowned venues as London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Musikverein in Vienna. In 2008 she made her US concert début at Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall), performing Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto. In 2011 Khatia Buniatishvili made her recording debut with a Liszt recital on Sony Classical, following now with her first recording accompanied with orchestra for a Chopin album. Khatia Buniatishvili has been invited to play with, among other orchestras, the Orchestre de Paris under Paavo Järvi, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France under Daniele Gatti and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. She can also often be heard in performances of chamber music: in a trio with Gidon Kremer, with Renaud Capuçon or also with her sister Gvantsa.
In 2010 Khatia received the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and was included in the BBC series on New Generation Artists. The Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus nominated her as Rising Star for the 2011–12 season. A great acclamation in 2012 was the selection of Khatia Buniatishvili as Best Newcomer of the Year in the Echo Klassik awards. In 2014 Khatia performed recitals at the Musikverein Vienna, Salle-Pleyel in Paris, the Carnegie Hall in New York and at the iTunes Festival in London. Her highlights of 2015 include concerts with the Russian National Orchestra at the Philharmonie in Munich, a performance at the “Festival de Música” in Madrid and a German tour with Paavo Järvi and the Orchestre de Paris. In 2016 she won the prestigious ECHO Klassik award for her album Kaleidoscope. In 2017 she released her latest album with the Piano Concerto Nos. 2 & 3 by the late-romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. Khatia Buniatishvili speaks five languages.
Renaud Capuçon
French violinist Renaud Capuçon is firmly established internationally as a major soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He is known and loved for his poise, depth of tone and virtuosity, and he works with the world’s most prestigious orchestras, artists, venues and festivals.
Born in Chambéry in 1976, Renaud Capuçon began his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris at the age of fourteen, winning numerous awards during his five years there. Following this, Capuçon moved to Berlin to study with Thomas Brandis and Isaac Stern and was awarded the Prize of the Berlin Academy of Arts. In 1997, he was invited by Claudio Abbado to become concert master of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, which he led for three summers, working with conductors including Boulez, Ozawa, Welser-Möst and Claudio Abbado.
Since then, Capuçon has established himself as a soloist at the very highest level. He performs with leading orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Vienna Philharmonic (VPO), London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Filarmonica della Scala, Boston Symphony and New York Philharmonic. His many conductor relationships include Gergiev, Barenboim, Bychkov, Dénève, Dohnanyi, Dudamel, Eschenbach, Haitink, Harding, Paavo Järvi, Nelsons, Nézet-Seguin, Roth, Shani, Ticciati, van Zweden and Long Yu.
A great commitment to chamber music has led him to collaborations with Argerich, Angelich, Barenboim, Bashmet, Bronfman, Buniatishvili, Grimaud, Hagen, Ma, Pires, Trifonov and Yuja Wang, as well as with his brother, cellist Gautier Capuçon, and have taken him, among others, to the Berlin, Lucerne, Verbier, Aix-en-Provence, Roque d’Anthéron, San Sebastián, Stresa, Salzburg, Edinburgh International and Tanglewood festivals. Capuçon has also represented France at some of the world’s most prestigious international events: he has performed with Yo-Yo Ma under the Arc de Triomphe for the official commemoration of Armistice Day in the presence of more than 80 heads of state, and played for world leaders at the G7 Summit in Biarritz.
Capuçon is the Artistic Director of two festivals, the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, since 2016, and the Easter Festival in Aix-en-Provence, which he founded in 2013. From the 2021/22 season, Capuçon is also the Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne; his first set of recordings with the ensemble entitled ‘Tabula Rasa’, released in September 2021, is an album devoted to the music of Arvo Pärt.
Capuçon has built an extensive discography and records exclusively with Erato/Warner Classics. Recent releases include a recording of Bartok’s two violin concerti with the LSO / Roth, Brahms and Berg with the VPO / Harding, and chamber music of Debussy. His latest recording, ‘Au Cinema’, featuring much loved selections from film music, releases in October 2018. His latest album ‘Un violin à Paris’, recorded with Guillaume Bellom and released in November 2021, features a large range of shorter works arranged for violin and piano.
In 2017, Capuçon founded a new ensemble, the Lausanne Soloists, comprised of current and former students of the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne, where he has held a professorship since 2014. He plays the Guarneri del Gesù ‘Panette’ (1737), which belonged to Isaac Stern. In June 2011 he was appointed ‘Chevalier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite’ and in March 2016 ‘Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur’ by the French Government.
