G r a n d s p i a n i s t e s
NOVEMBER 2009
at La Maison Française
François-Frédéric Guy
(Program to be announced at a later date.)
Press reviews
"François Frederic Guy... offered a performance of the Fourth Concerto (Beethoven) that spoke quiet volumes about his exceptional talent. His playing combined an undemonstrative manner with real authority, while finding lyrical loveliness at every turn..." - Pianist Magazine
"In Brahms' Piano Concerto N°2, the soloist François-Frédéric Guy was a like-minded collaborator in making the music lyrical, weighty and dynamic. He produced expressive force from shapely phrasing rather than pushing the pace around, drew rich sonorities from the keyboard's left-hand area and animated them with well-judged accents. He had the stamina to keep up momentum through the notorious wrist-breaking crescendos. All this prowess, and in the later movements delicacy too, was deployed within an unswerving vision of the work's dimensions." - The Independent
François-Frédéric Guy has a growing reputation for interpretations of authority, intensity and insight. He is especially renowned for his performances of large-scale works in the Austro-German tradition – in November 2006, BBC Radio 3’s CD Review selected his Naïve recording of Beethoven’s epic Hammerklavier Sonata as the finest in the catalogue.
François-Frédéric Guy studied with Dominique Merlet and Christian Ivaldi at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he graduated with the fist prize. In addition to his admiration of Beethoven – whom he describes as "the Alpha and Omega of music" – he has special affinities with the music of Bartók, Brahms, Liszt and Prokofiev and a strong commitment to contemporary music with close links to composers such as Ivan Fedele, Marc Monnet, Gerard Pesson and Hugues Dufourt, who recently dedicated a significant new piano piece Erlkönig to him.
Mr. Guy has performed worldwide with orchestras such as the Berlin Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Hallé, Helsinki Philharmonic, Japan Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de Lyon and San Francisco Symphony. In the summer of 2006 he made his BBC Proms début at the Royal Albert Hall performing the Ravel Piano Concerto with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia. Other outstanding conductors with whom he has worked include Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Neeme Järvi, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Michael Tilson Thomas. As part of his ongoing Beethoven project, he is recording the complete Piano Concertos with Philippe Jordan and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
Listen to François-Frédéric Guy: www.ffguy.com
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