Hélène Grimaud

Hélène Grimaud (born November 7, 1969) is a French pianist.

Contents

Biography

Grimaud was born in Aix-en-Provence, France. Although her autobiography Variations Sauvages suggests a Christian upbringing, Hélène is descended from Italian-Sephardi Jews from Corsica on her mother's side, and from Algerian Jews on her father's side.[1][2] She has stated that as a child she was often "agitated".[3] She discovered the piano at seven. She entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1982, where she studied with Jacques Rouvier. In 1985 she won first prize at the Conservatory, and the Grand Prix du Disque of the Académie Charles Cros for her recording of the Sergei Rachmaninoff Piano Sonata No. 2. In 1987, she launched her professional career with a solo recital in Paris and a performance with the Orchestre de Paris under Daniel Barenboim.

In 1991, at age 21, Grimaud moved to Tallahassee, Florida, to be near a boyfriend who taught bassoon at Florida State University.[4] In 1997, she settled in Westchester County, north of New York City. After some time spent in Berlin,[5] she currently resides in Switzerland.[6] She has a passion for wolves, which she studies and raises. She now divides her time between her musical career and the Wolf Conservation Center, which she co-founded with her former companion, photographer J. Henry Fair.[7] She also experiences synesthesia, where one physical sense adds to another, in her case seeing music as color.

She performed at the Last Night of the BBC Proms in London in September 2008, playing the piano part of Beethoven's Choral Fantasia.

Critical reception

Critics have praised Grimaud's willingness to reinterpret works and take chances, and compared her to Glenn Gould:

Grimaud doesn’t sound like most pianists: she is a rubato artist, a reinventor of phrasings, a taker of chances. “A wrong note that is played out of élan, you hear it differently than one that is played out of fear,” she says. She admires “the more extreme players . . . people who wouldn’t be afraid to play their conception to the end.” Her two overriding characteristics are independence and drive, and her performances attempt, whenever possible, to shake up conventional pianistic wisdom. Brian Levine, the executive director of the Glenn Gould Foundation, sees in Grimaud a resemblance to Gould: “She has this willingness to take a piece of music apart and free herself from the general body of practice that has grown up around it.”[8]

Discography

On Denon [A]
On Erato
On Teldec
On Deutsche Grammophon
On Philips
On ACA Digital Recording, Inc

Bibliography

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ^ The complete Denon recordings have been released in a box by Brilliant Classics.

References

  1. ^ Hélène Grimaud Biography - Discography, Music, Lyrics, Album, CD, Career, Famous Works, and Awards
  2. ^ Rockwell, John (29 May 1994). "RECORDINGS VIEW; Sacre Bleu! Don't Call Her French, Or Even Female". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E5DD1F38F93AA15756C0A962958260. 
  3. ^ Peter Culshaw, "The pianist who's leader of the pack". Telegraph, 11 November 2002.
  4. ^ Rockwell, John (May 29, 1994). "Sacre Bleu! Don't Call Her French, Or Even Female". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/29/arts/recordings-view-sacre-bleu-don-t-call-her-french-or-even-female.html?pagewanted=all. Retrieved 10-31-2011. 
  5. ^ Biographie: Hélène Grimaud, documentary by Alix François Meier, 2006
  6. ^ Hélène Grimaud, une carrière faite de rencontre (biography in French) by Arnaud Schwartz, La Croix, 2008
  7. ^ James R. Oestreich, "A Pianist Harmonizes With Wolves". New York Times, 5 November 2006.
  8. ^ New Yorker Profile by D. T. Max: "Her Way, A pianist of strong opinions", 7 November 2011

External links