The French violinist Renaud Capuçon is not only considered one of the leading violinists and chamber musicians of our day, with a wide-ranging repertory, but is also active as a festival director and pedagogue.
Born in Chambéry, he began his musical training aged 14 at the Paris Conservatoire. During his studies he won numerous awards. He subsequently studied in Berlin with Thomas Brandis and Isaac Stern. In 1997 Claudio Abbado appointed him concert master of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, where for three years he worked with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa and Franz Welser-Möst. Since then, he has established himself as one of the most important violinists working today.
He has performed with leading orchestras such as the Berlin, Vienna and New York Philharmonics, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris under conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnányi, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
He has appeared at festivals including those of Edinburgh, Berlin, Lucerne, Verbier, Tanglewood and Salzburg, performing with musicians such as Nicholas Angelich, Martha Argerich, Yuri Bashmet, Yefim Bronfman, Khatia Buniatishvili, Hélène Grimaud, Maria João Pires and Yuja Wang, as well as his brother, cellist Gautier Capuçon.
Since 2013 he is artistic director of the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence, which he founded, and since 2016 he is artistic director of the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad. At the University of Music in Lausanne, where he has taught since 2014, he founded the Ensemble Lausanne Soloists. In addition, since 2021/22 he has been artistic director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne.
Renaud Capuçon amassed an extensive discography during his time as an exclusive artist of Erato/Warner Classics. In 2022 he moved to Deutsche Grammophon, and in 2023 he released three albums of works by Mozart.
In 2011 Renaud Capuçon was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Mérite and, in 2016, Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur.
Renaud Capuçon plays the Guarneri violin ‘Panette’ of 1737, which previously belonged to Isaac Stern.
