ROSAMONDE STRING QUARTET
"The strength of their ensemble is obvious. Tonally the Rosamonde are very much a unit : balance is finely judged, and quality of colour and the intensity are clearly arrived at through a communal decision. In Faure Quartet, this rich validity was impressive. In the Debussy, they showed a really exceptional command of the ebb and flow that so often characterizes Debussy's handling of tempo."
The members of the ROSAMONDE STRING QUARTET (formed in 1981) studied together at the Paris Conservatoire (C.N.S.M) where they all graduated with Premiers Prix.
As a quartet they trained at the Paris Conservatoire and Yale University. Their meeting and friendship with Raphael Hillyer, who was violist for 25 years with the Juilliard Quartet, was decisive: it was he who introduced them in their early years to the Tanglewood Festival in the United States. From Eugene Lehner, violist of the Kolish Quartet and a friend of Schoenberg and Bartók, they received the heritage of the teaching of the great Viennese masters of the early twentieth century.
At the International Competition in Evian in 1983 the ROSAMONDE QUARTET was unanimously awarded the Prize for the best performance of contemporary works and the Special Prize of the international jury of critics. In 1986 it won First Prize at the International String Quartet Competition organised by the Union of European Radios in Salzburg. The ROSAMONDE STRING QUARTET has an international career.
It appears regularly in the United States and in the great European concert halls, including the Mozarteum in Salzburg, London's Wigmore Hall, Bruckner Haus in Linz and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris.
Critics worldwide have hailed "the beauty of its tone", " the precision of its style", "the refinement and elegance of its phrasing, directly inherited from the french school of quartet playing".
François DUMONT
French pianist François Dumont’s international career has been launched by his success in major international piano competitions winning prizes in the Chopin Competition, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, the Clara Haskil Competition, the Montecarlo Piano Masters. He has been nominated for the Victoires de la musique, a major French classical music event. He has received the Prix de la Révélation from the Syndicate of Music Critics in France.
François Dumont has been chosen by Leonard Slatkin to play and record both Ravel concerti with the Orchestre National de Lyon. The CD will be issued for Naxos during the 2019 season.
He appears as a soloist with orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra, the Montecarlo Philharmonic, the Warsaw National Philharmonic, the Orchestre national de Lorraine, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France, the Orquesta Nacional de Colombia, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Tokyo Symphony with conductors such as Jesùs Lopez-Cobos, Antoni Wit, Arie van Beek, Philippe Bender, Rani Calderon, David Reiland, Stefan Sanderling, Alexander Sladkovsky.
François Dumont was fourteen years old when he entered the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Bruno Rigutto’s class. He later studied at the prestigious Lieven Piano Foundation and the Lake Como International Piano Academy with artists such as Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, Murray Perahia, William Grant Naboré, Menahem Pressler, Andreas Staier and Fou Ts’ong.
François Dumont is invited to perform recitals in major venues such as the Festival International de la Roque d’Anthéron, the Piano aux Jacobins Festival à Toulouse, Chopin Festival in Nohant, Radio-France Montpellier Festival, Chopin à Paris Bagatelle Festival, Chopin and his Europe Festival in Warsaw, Nuits du Suquet in Cannes, Journées Ravel in Montfort l’Amaury, Ljubljana Festival, Kennedy Center in Washington. He regularly tours Japan, South Korea and China.
His chambers music partners are Tabea Zimmerman, Augustin Dumay, Henri Demarquette , Xavier Philipps, the Prazak, Sine Nomine, Talich, Zemlinsky, Voce and Debussy Quartets. With Virginie Constant and Philippe Aïche, his is part of the Trio Élégiaque, which whom he recorded the complete Beethoven and Schubert Trios.
His first solo recordings, the Complete Mozart Sonatas (Anima Records) and a Chopin album (Artalinna) both received the “Maestro” award of the “Pianiste” magazine. Other solo recordings include a Wagner/Liszt programme (Piano Classics) as well as a double CD live that includes all his performances at the Chopin Competition, published by the National Chopin Institute in Warsaw. His recording of the complete piano music of Maurice Ravel (Piano Classics) has received both critic (FFF Telerama, 5 Diapason) and public acclaim. Two B.A.C.H. project have been released by Artalinna, of which the famous critic Jacques Drillon wrote : « coherence, dignity, richness of affects. One thinks of Edwin Fisher ». His recent recording of Mozart Concerti K.271 and K.466 with the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne have been praised for their “clarity of elocution”, their “ideal sense of equilibrium” and “delightful classicism”.
His collaboration with the OSB continues with Mozart Concerti K.453 and K.488 which he has recorded live, conducting from the keyboard. The project was taken to Salle Gaveau, Paris, where it met public and critic acclaim. His 2018 allbum featuring the complete Chopin Nocturnes was praised by the BBC magazine for his « singing tone » and the International Piano Magazine considers that it is « a stunning new version that sets him apart », while the American magazine Fanfare writes : «There are few recent recordings to compare with this one. »
During the 2018-19 season, he is invited to perform Franck and Ravel concertos with Les Siècles orchestra conducted by François-Xavier Roth. Concerts will take him to Taïwan, Luxembourg, Ireland, Belgium and Russia. He will give a concert tour with Orchestre des Pays de Savoie with Mozart’s « Jeunehomme » concerto.
His debut in the Paris Philharmonie will take place in February 2019 with Schumann piano concerto.
Yann DUBOST
Born in Lyon (France), Yann Dubost began studying music with the violin, then the double bass. He studied with Philippe Guingouain and Bernard Cazauran, graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon, and joined in 2002 the Orchestre de Paris, at the age of 19. He worked three summers with Seiji Ozawa in his International Music Academy – Switzerland. Among his many awards are : 1st prize of the Haverhill Soloist Competition (England) in 2004, 1st prize of the International Society of Bassists (ISB) Solo Competition (USA) in 2005 and 3rd prize at the Premio Valentino Bucchi (Roma) in 2008. He became in 2011 principal double bass in the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, conducted by M.W. Chung. As guest principal Yann has played in the London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Opéra National de Lyon…
Yann is very much appreciated as a soloist and in chamber music. His regular partners include Bertrand Chamayou, Christoph Eschenbach, Adam Laloum, Frank Braley, Renaud Capuçon, Amaury Coeytaux, Augustin Dumay, Victor Julien-Laferrière, Roland and Raphaël Pidoux, Jérôme Pernoo, Christophe Coin, Philippe Berrod, Moraguès quintet, and the quartets Ardeo, Debussy, Diotima, Thymos… He regularly takes part in festivals such as Deauville, Les Arcs, Les Musiques in Marseille, Folle Journée in Nantes, Besançon international festival, Epau festival, Printemps des Arts (Monte-Carlo), Rencontres Musicales d’Enghien (Belgium), Capalest (Slovakia), ModFest (USA), Schleswig-Holstein and Ultraschall (Germany), Arties (India)… He is very much interested in all kinds of music. He has frequently played classical music with the Ensemble Pygmalion and is a founder of the trio “Les Tromano” for violin, accordion and bass. He also regularly takes part in the concerts of Les Dissonances and the Sirba octet (yiddish).
As a soloist, he had the pleasure to play with orchestras such as the Bedford Sinfonia, Haverhill Sinfonia, Orchestre Mozart Toulouse, Münchener Kammerorchester… He was invited to give recitals in the 2007 and 2009 International Society of Bassists conventions. Fond of contemporary music, he premiered and recorded several pieces for solo bass (by R. Wilson, Y. Chauris, C. Roqué-Alsina, B. Taylor…) and has been member of the Ensemble Itinéraire since 2002. Yann has met and worked with composers such as Franck Bedrossian, Henri Dutilleux, György Kurtag, Michaël Levinas, Betsy Jolas… He has recently recorded solo pieces by Richard Wilson (Albany records), Teresa Procaccini (Edipan) and also works by Lucien Durosoir with Diotima quartet (Alpha), André Caplet with Ardeo quartet (Timpani), Claude Debussy with Debussy quartet (Timpani), Félicien David in quintet with Christophe Coin (Laborie)…
He plays a double bass made by Giuseppe Zanotti in 1733, former property of the renowned musician and teacher Yoan Goïlav. Yann Dubost teaches at the Conservatoire de Paris (CRR and PSPBB).
