EstOvest Festival
presents

La Disfida dei Violoncelli di Francia

(The Cello Challenge of France)
FolkClub and EstOvest Festival are collaborating once again for the fourth edition of the Contemporary Cello Week, an event that annually gathers many of the finest cellists dedicated to modern-day repertoire in Turin. The evening’s program will offer carte blanche to two extraordinary virtuosos of the instrument. Renaud Dejardin and Éric-Maria Couturier will engage in a friendly duel, blending baroque pieces with jazz improvisations, avant-garde interventions with minimalist melodies, virtuoso performances with late-romantic cantabiles. The two soloists from the world’s leading contemporary music ensemble (Paris’s Ensemble Intercontemporain) have accepted the challenge of creating a surprise program exclusively for the FolkClub audience. Alternating on stage and duetting with astonishing mastery, these two great French cellists will reveal the countless shades and limitless expressive possibilities of the string instrument. J.S. Bach, György Ligeti, Jean-Louis Duport, or Salvatore Sciarrino? What will be the inspirations for La Disfida dei Violoncelli di Francia?
Éric-Maria Couturier is a professor at the Conservatories of Paris and Lyon and is highly sought after for contemporary repertoire. He has studied under Roland Pidoux, Christian Ivaldi, Igor Gavrich, Patrick Moutal, and Jorge Chaminé, and is a great admirer of Mstislav Rostropovich and Yo-Yo Ma. A polymorphous virtuoso, he regularly performs on major international stages, as a soloist or in chamber music with the Talweg trio, with other artists like Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich, and Juliana Steinbach, and with the Ensemble intercontemporain, which he joined in 2002. With composer Olivier Derivière, he created the music for the video game Plague Innocent Tale / Requiem, as well as for other games like Dying Light and Vampyr. He has improvised in concert with David Linx, Laika and the Unit, Sébastien Lanson, and with the electronic trio Plug, alongside Michele Rabbia and Nicolas Crosse. With Bertrand Chavarria, he created a piece illustrating the energy of karate. He performs in Japan and Europe with Noh singer Ryoko Aoki and percussionist Tsuchitori Toshi, a collaborator of Peter Brook. Couturier has worked with some of the greatest conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Georg Solti, Carlo Maria Giulini, Peter Eötvös, Susanna Mälkki, Jonathan Nott, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, among others. He performs as a soloist in cello concertos by Haydn, Dvořák, Brahms (double), Shostakovich, Eötvös, Fujikura, Kurtág, Merlin, Pfitzner, Saariaho, and Robin, whose concerto Quarks is dedicated to him. Fascinated by teaching based on improvisation, as well as discovering new techniques, Eric-Maria Couturier created Les Ateliers du violoncelle with Noémie Boutin and Vincent Courtois, with whom he regularly performs. He plays with bows by Claudia Carmona and Jean Grumberger.
Renaud Déjardin, born in Strasbourg, began his musical training under the guidance of Mihaly Temesvari and Jean Deplace, continuing his studies in Paris with Philippe Muller and Timothy Eddy at Stony Brook (USA). From a young age, he was captivated by the symphonic repertoire, a passion nurtured by formative musical experiences with Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez, and Colin Davis, even before embarking on his professional career. His accolades include prizes from several international competitions (Rostropovich Competition in Paris, Paulo Competition in Helsinki, Bach Competition in Leipzig), and he has performed as a soloist with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre National d'Ile-de-France. Through masterclasses, he has been mentored by Mstislav Rostropovich, Anner Bylsma, and Bernard Greenhouse. Continuing to develop his knowledge of both past and present repertoires, he has worked and performed with various orchestras and ensembles: Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France (notably Ravel, Sibelius, Mahler, Boulez, Eötvös), Opéra de Paris (Berg's Lulu), Ensemble intercontemporain (Stockhausen, Nancarrow, Staud, Jarrell), Salzburg Chamber Soloists (Mozart, Strauss's Metamorphosen), and Ensemble Court-Circuit (Hurel, Grisey, Murail, Maresz). He pursued studies in analysis, harmony, orchestration, and conducting. As a conductor, he premiered numerous pieces for ensembles and recorded works by Jean-Luc Hervé with Ensemble Court-Circuit, Luciano Berio with Vincent David and Ensemble Quaerendo Invenietis, Allain Gaussin with Ensemble Sillages, Ofer Pelz with Ensemble Meitar, and Bernard Cavanna and Martin Matalon with Ensemble Mesostics. Moving on to more personal projects, such as composition, he created a volume of piano pieces (Livre des clairs-obscurs) and wrote a series of pieces for young performers. In 2014, he joined the Orchestre National d'Ile-de-France, later becoming a member of Ensemble intercontemporain in 2022.

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