Gaëtane Prouvost

At a time when interpretation tends to be standardized, Gaëtane Prouvost is the heiress of the Franco-Belgian violin school. Trained in Paris by Roland Charmy and Jean Hubeau, she joined Ivan Galamian at the Juilliard School, as did many contemporary virtuosos. But her real master was Zino Francescatti, one of the great violinists of the previous century and heir to Paganini's technique. She has dedicated a biography to him (Ed. de l'Harmattan) and a CD featuring his original compositions and transcriptions (Ed. l'Empreinte Digitale).

Gifted with the solid technique and rare sonority that are the hallmarks of the Paganinian tradition, Gaëtane Prouvost's playing lends itself equally well to the lightness of the Baroque repertoire and the generosity of the great Romantics.

Dedicated to numerous contemporary works, including Michel Rateau's Concerto and Olivier Greif's Sonate et Variations, she is a frequent guest of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, where she performs under the direction of Kent Nagano, Gary Bertini and Pierre Boulez. Chosen by Olivier Messiaën, she performed the Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps at its premiere in the USSR. In 2015, she premiered Rémi Gousseau's concerto with the Prague Camerata Bohemiana under his direction.

Guest professor at the Prague Academy and Conservatory, she regularly gives master-classes there, focusing on French music.

Passionate about chamber music, she works with Abdel Rahman el Bacha, Emmanuelle Bertrand, Pascal Amoyel, Laurent Cabasso, Emmanuel Ceysson, Valérie Aimard, Jean-Paul Sevilla, Damien Lehman, Jun Kanno, the Enesco Quartet, Yovan Markovitch, Diana Ligeti, Dana Ciocarlie...

Each of her recordings has received critical acclaim. Prokofiev's sonatas for violin and piano with Abdel Rahman El Bacha, for example, received top awards from Gramophone magazine and the Choc du Monde de la Musique. With Laurent Cabasso, she recorded the complete chamber music of Gabriel Pierné, as well as the works of Louise Farrenc, both winning awards from the specialist press.

Her recording with Eliane Reyes at the piano is devoted to the Franco-Belgian school: sonatas by Vincent d'Indy, Ermend Bonnal and Albert Dupuis. This recording is one of the five nominees for the Octaves de la Musique 2021 - Belgium's equivalent of the Victoires de la Musique.

To mark the centenary of Gabriel Fauré's death, her latest recording celebrates the French composer and his illustrious pupils Enesco, Boulanger and Ravel. Recorded with Dana Ciocarlie and Mara Dobresco, the album was released in November 2023 on the EnPhases label.

Gaëtane Prouvost has conceived and created several shows interweaving music and literature: Vol de nuit, based on texts by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, La Princesse et le Musicien, based on Gabriel Fauré's epistolary relationship with the Princesse de Polignac, and more recently Alma Mahler, La confusion des sentiments. She shares the stage with a number of eminent actors, including Didier Sandre, Marie-Christine Barrault and Lambert Wilson.

With the duo Vents d'Est, consisting of violin and cymbalum, she and Cyril Dupuy contribute to a repertoire ranging from Brahms, Bartok and Ravel to contemporary works.