Program :

French pianist winner of the Long-Thibaud competition in 2007 and finalist of the Chopin competition on historical instruments in 2018, Antoine de Grolée was born in Picardy and started playing the piano at the age of 6, thanks to a musician grandmother.
He began his musical career at the National School of Music in Saint-Quentin with the Polish pianist Irène Kutin, from whom he continues to receive advice. At the age of 17, he entered the CNSMD of Lyon in Pierre Pontier’s class, assisted by Marie-Paule Aboulker and Svetlana Eganian. In 2005, he obtained the Diplôme national d’études supérieures musicales with the congratulations of the jury. He then worked with the pianist Hortense Cartier-Bresson then with Boris Petrushansky at the Piano Academy of Imola (Italy). He also took keyboard harmony classes with Isabelle Duha.

He has received advice from great pianists and pedagogues such as Zoltan Kocsis, Anne Queffélec, Evgueni Moguilevski, Thérèse Dussaut, Laurent Cabasso, Sergio Perticaroli, Tuija Hakkila, Billy Eidi and Christine Marchais-Sieffert. In chamber music, he has had the opportunity to be taught by Valentin Erben, Paul Katz, Miguel Da Silva, Claire Désert, Christian Ivaldi, Emmanuel Strosser, Olivier Charlier, Louis Fima, Régis Pasquier, members of the Trio Wanderer and the Ysaÿe Quartet. He has also been a member of the ensembles in residence at La Roque d’Anthéron.

In 2018, he was a finalist in the Warsaw Chopin Competition, which for the first time honoured historic pianos. Previously, he had won the 5th Prize at the Long-Thibaud International Competition in 2007, as well as the 1st Prizes at the Teresa Llacuna Competition in 2005 and the Flame Competition in 2000. He is a laureate of the Groupe Banque Populaire Corporate Foundation, the Charles Oulmont Foundation and the ProMusicis International Chamber Music Prize.

For several years, he has been invited to numerous festivals: La Roque d’Anthéron, La Folle journée de Nantes, Festival des Arcs, Classique au Vert, Prima la Musica in Vincennes, Chopin à Bagatelle, Festival de Menton, les Moments musicaux de Gerberoy, les Musicales de Croissy, les Vacances de M. Haydn in La Roche-Posay, les Inouïes, Festival Couperin in Champs-sur-Marne, les Heures Musicales du Haut-Anjou, Festival du Haut-Limousin, Piano à Riom, Festival de Sagonne, La Charité-sur-Loire, Piano en Saintonge, les Rencontres musicales de Noyers-sur-Serein, the Salon de Musique de Franche-Comté, the Festival de Richelieu, the Moments Musicaux de Chalosse, the Pianos Folies du Touquet, Eclats de Voix in Auch, the International Chamber Music Festival in Poitou, Tarbes en Tango, Places aux Artistes in Albi, 1,2,3 Musique à Talence…
He has given recitals and chamber music performances in Paris (Salle Gaveau, Salle Cortot, Fondation Singer-Polignac, Hôtel de Soubise, Temple St Marcel…) and Lyon (Salle Rameau, Molière, Amphithéâtre de l’Opéra…), at the Auditorium St-Pierre-des Cuisines in Toulouse, at the Auditorium du Grand Cahors, at the Grande Scène du Chesnay, at the Ferme de Villefavard, at the Carré Lamartine in Amiens, at the Theatres of Colmar, Saint Quentin, Arras, Besançon, Dole, Quimper, Néris-les-Bains, Valence…

He has also performed at the Sofia and Vilnius Philharmonic Orchestras, in Brussels (Palais des Beaux-Arts), Rome (Teatro Marcello), London (Austrian Cultural Centre), Moscow (Museum of the Great War), Albania (Festival Different trains), Morocco (Institut Français de Rabat), Printemps des Alizés in Essaouira, Musicales d’Agadir…), in Spain (Prince of Asturias Festival), in Moldavia (Piano Nights in Chisinau), in Austria, Holland, Greece, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkmenistan, Argentina…

Passionate about chamber music, his partners have included Svetlin Roussev, Tedi Papavrami, Eléonore Darmon, Michel Dalberto, François Salque, Hildegarde Fesneau, David Guerrier, Ayako Tanaka, Julie Sévilla-Fraysse, Pierre Fouchenneret, Laurent Cabasso, Léo Marillier, Irène Duval, Alexis Galpérine, Amaury Coeytaux, Lise Berthaud, Florent Charpentier, Hélène Clément, Virgil Boutellis, Guillaume Chilemme, Xavier Gagnepain, Julien Beaudiment, Elsa Grether, Saténik Khourdoian, the Joachim Quartet, Elysée, Varèse, Akilone, Girard…

He has performed as a soloist with various ensembles including the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra in Brahms’ Concerto No. 2, the Moldavian Chamber Orchestra, the Warsaw Opera Orchestra, the Lyon Philharmonia Orchestra, as well as with the Orchestre National de France at the Long-Thibaud Competition.

A fiery and impassioned temperament! » – Daria Hovora, pianist

As a child of five, Eléonore Darmon would listen over and over to her Hungarian gypsy violin records. By the time she was ten, she knew: she would be a violinist. In fact, the little musician’s ardent enthusiasm was noticed by Ivry Gitlis when she appeared on French television in the children’s talent show l’Ecole des Fans. Introduced to music by her mother, a pianist, and then to violin by Véronique Dominger and Marthe Tercieux, Eléonore was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 14. She studied violin and chamber music with Michael Hentz and Daria Hovora, and after earning first prizes in both disciplines, she sought fresh perspective in Florence, where she studied with Pavel Vernikov, and then pursued her training in Vienna. These experiences enhanced the range of her sound with new colours. “My violin is my voice,” she says.

Eléonore has won several international prizes and received awards from three foundations: Banque Populaire, Cziffra and Or du Rhin. Her career as a concert violinist began at age 16 with a performance of Mendelssohn’s Concerto with the Nancy Symphony Orchestra. The conductor, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, was as astounded as the audience by this “phenomenal young violinist”. She went on to appear with a number of orchestras in France and abroad, including the Paul Kuentz Chamber Orchestra, with which she performed over 50 times as a soloist starting at the age of 14.

Even when she plays as a soloist, Eléonore Darmon sees music as an act of sharing and reciprocity: “Everything is chamber music! Whether facing the orchestra or in the orchestra, with piano or as part of a quartet, the violinist must have the same ability to listen to the other musicians,” says Eléonore. Between 2013 and 2016, she held the position of concertmaster for the Orchestre de l’Alliance in Paris – an orchestra with which she performed Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D Major at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, in a concert that was filmed and that can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube. Since 2015, Eléonore has been a regular guest violinist with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and with the orchestras of Lille, Montpellier and Bordeaux as principal second or third violinist.

In 2018, she substituted several times for the concertmaster of the Aarhus Orchestra in Denmark, first in a programme focused on Copland and then in all four Brahms symphonies. This is how the orchestra’s permanent conductor, Marc Soustrot, described the experience:

“This performance of the complete Brahms symphonies gave me an opportunity to discover a brilliant musician with a strong, determined temperament, everything that is indispensable for the position Eléonore held for four concerts (three different programmes). Her musicianship and technique proved indispensable to the success of the concerts.”

Éléonore performs on a Gianbattista Grancino violin with a Eugène Sartory bow.