The French violinist Renaud Capuçon is not only considered one of the leading violin soloists and chamber musicians of our day, with a wide-ranging repertory, but is also active as a conductor, festival director and pedagogue. Born in Chambéry, he began his musical training aged 14 at the Paris Conservatoire, and subsequently studied in Berlin with Thomas Brandis and Isaac Stern. In 1997, Claudio Abbado appointed him concert master of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester.
He has performed with leading orchestras such as the Berlin, Munich, Vienna and New York Philharmonics, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra under conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnányi, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Highlights of the 2025/26 season have included performances with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and a European tour with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. As a conductor he has toured with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and made his debuts with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and with the Orchestra of St Luke’s at Carnegie Hall.
Since 2021 he has been artistic director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, a position he also holds at the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, the Rencontres Musicales d’Évian and the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence, which he founded in 2013. He has represented France at prestigious events, including — together with his brother, cellist Gautier Capuçon — the re-opening of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris in 2024.
He has appeared at festivals including those of Edinburgh, Berlin, Lucerne, Verbier, Tanglewood and Salzburg, performing with chamber music partners such as Nicholas Angelich, Martha Argerich, Yuri Bashmet, Yefim Bronfman, Khatia Buniatishvili, Hélène Grimaud, Igor Levit, Yo-Yo Ma, Maria João Pires, Kian Soltani, Daniil Trifonov and Yuja Wang.
As an exclusive artist with Erato / Warner Classics he amassed an extensive discography. In 2022 he moved to Deutsche Grammophon. His releases include several albums of works by Mozart and Fauré and, most recently, a compendium of works by Richard Strauss (2025).
Since 2014 Renaud Capuçon has taught at the University of Music in Lausanne. He was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Mérite in 2011 and, in 2016, Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur.
Renaud Capuçon plays the Guarneri violin ‘Panette’ of 1737, which was previously owned by Isaac Stern.
