Nathanaël Gouin, Yan Levionnois, Guillaume Chilemme
Biography Nathanaël Gouin, Yan Levionnois, Guillaume Chilemme
Nathanaël Gouin
Released by Mirare in September 2017, Nathanaël Gouin’s first recital album, “Liszt Macabre”, aroused enthusiastic responses from the critics. For Diapason, “Liszt Macabre stands out due to the relevance of the program and also to a perfect production”. According to Classica (which awarded him a “Choc”), “far from scaring Nathanaël Gouin, this gloomy repertoire enables him to express all his luminous talent! ». Undoubtedly, Nathanaël Gouin is one of the most original figures on the musical stage in recent years. During his residency at Queen Elizabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, he was supported by Maria João Pires, who introduced him to the public as a member of the Partitura project, a concept that brought together different generations of musicians to share the stage, resulting in major tours in Europe and Japan.
Nathanaël Gouin has become a sought-after soloist and chamber musician, performing in Europe, Asia and the United States. He has been invited to prestigious venues such as the Salle Pierre Boulez of the Philharmonie de Paris and the Cité de la musique in Paris, La Seine Musicale in Boulogne-Billancourt, the Salle Rameau in Lyon, Bozar and the Salle Flagey in Brussels, not to mention festivals such as La Roque d’Anthéron, Radio France and Montpellier, Les Flâneries musicales de Reims, Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, Les Folles Journées in Nantes, Tokyo, Warsaw and Ekaterinbourg, La Salle Bourgie in Montreal and La nouvelle Scala in Paris.
In the concerto repertoire, Nathanaël Gouin developed a comprehensive and inquisitive approach, which led to stimulating collaborations with many ensembles: the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, the Ensemble “Les Siècles”, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sinfonia Varsovia and the Radio France Choir. In 2016, Edouard Lalo’s Concerto for piano and orchestra was recorded with the Philharmonique de Liège under the baton of Jean-Jacques Kantorow (Outhere label). This album received the highest praises and Classica magazine already mentioned Nathanaël as one of the most promising pianists of the young generation. Chamber music is obviously very present in his artistic life and he is fortunate to be in touch with great performers such as Augustin Dumay, Jean-Claude Pennetier, Michel Dalberto, José Van Dam and Jerome Pernoo. He has also initiated a piano-violin duo with Guillaume Chilemme, whose recordings of Ravel, Canal and Schubert have been noticed by the critics.
Nathanaël Gouin began studying the piano and the violin at the age of 3. He was trained at the Conservatories of Toulouse and Paris, the Juilliard School of Music in New York, but also the Hochschulen für Musik Freiburg-im-Breisgau and Munich as well as at the Académie Musicale in Villecroze, not to mention the Queen Elisabeth Chapel. He has also received advice from great musicians such as Jean-Claude Pennetier, Michel Beroff, Louis Lortie, Avedis Kouyoumdian, Denis Pascal, Rena Shereshevskaya and Dimitri Bashkirov.
A laureate of numerous international competitions, such as the Johannes Brahms Competition in Pörtschach, Austria (First Prize), the Swedish International Duo Competition (First Prize) and the Lyon International Chamber Music Competition, he is also a winner of the Banque Populaire Corporate Foundation and the Meyer Foundation. He is an artist in residence at the Singer Polignac Foundation as a member of the Brahma Quartet.
Guillaume Chilemme
A First Prize laureate at the Swedish International Duo Competition with pianist Nathanaël Gouin, Third Grand Prize laureate as well as a recipient of the Special Prize for students of the Paris Conservatories at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Competition, Guillaume Chilemme ranks among the most acknowledged violinists of his generation.
In 2010, after having graduated with a Master’s degree and jury’s special mention in violin and chamber music in the classes of Boris Garlitsky and Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, he went to Germany to improve his skills with Stéphane Picard and Eckart Runge (Artemis Quartet) in Berlin, then with David Grimal in Saarbrücken.
From 2008 to 2013, Seiji Ozawa selected him to participate in the International Music Academy Switzerland, where he received tuition from Nobuko Imai, Pamela Frank, Sadao Harada, Robert Mann and Seiji Ozawa.
Fond of the string quartet repertoire, he cofounded the Cavatine Quartet with Marie Chilemme, Matthieu Handtschoewercker and Bruno Delepelaire, with whom he won two prizes at the International Chamber Music Competition Hamburg (ICMC) during the same year. In August 2013, the quartet won the second Grand Prize at the prestigious Banff International String Quartet Competition (Canada). Guillaume Chilemme has been forming a duo with his friend Nathanaël Gouin for many years.
Their discography includes an album dedicated to Ravel and Canal sonatas (Maguelone CD label) as well as a recording dedicated to Schubert’s music (Evidence label). In addition, they regularly perform in trio with Yan Levionnois.
Guillaume has been invited to perform in many festivals: Les Folles Journées in Nantes, Warsaw, Tokyo, Les Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Musique à L’Empéri, the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg Hohenems, the Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival, the Festival de l’Orangerie de Sceaux, the Julita festival in Sweden, the Festival des Serres d’Auteuil, La Roque d’Anthéron, the Festival des Arcs, the Easter Festival in Deauville...
There he has performed with musicians such as Frank Braley, Andreas Ottensamer, Renaud Capuçon, Gauthier Capuçon, Raphaël Pidoux, Michel Portal, Lise Berthaud, Paul Meyer, Emmanuel Pahud, the Voce Quartet, Alois Posch, Christian Ivaldi, Nicholas Angelich, Pierre Fouchenneret, Claire Désert, Adam Laloum, Victor Julien-Laferrière, Xavier Gagnepain, Florent Boffard, Emmanuelle Bertrand, Khatia Buniatishvili, ...
Since 2016 Guillaume Chilemme has been the new concertmaster of the Orchestre d’Auvergne.
He is frequently invited as concertmaster in diverse orchestras: the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchestre de Radio France, the Malher Chamber Orchestra, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, the Lisbon Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg ... He has been a member of David Grimal’s collective of artists “Les Dissonances” for many years.
Guillaume Chilemme regularly appears as a soloist. He is invited by the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse under the baton of Tugan Sokhiev, the Orchestre Victor-Hugo Franche-Comté, “Les Dissonances” self-conducted orchestra, the Orchestre d’Auvergne, ...
Since 2015, he has been part of the “Adolph Busch Project”, a quartet created by Renaud Capuçon along with Edgar Moreau and Adrien La Marca. The four musicians regularly perform in the greatest concert halls in Europe (Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Musikverein in Vienna, Wigmore Hall in London... Guillaume Chilemme teaches at the International Menuhin Music Academy (Switzerland) and he is a winner of the Safran Foundation (2015).
He currently plays a wonderful violin crafted by Nicolas Lupot in 1795, generously lent by Bernard Magrez.
Yan Levionnois
A prize winner of some of the most prestigious international cello competitions, such as the Rostropovich and Queen Elisabeth International Competitions, Yan Levionnois stands out by his inquisitive mind which incites him to diversify his artistic experiences.
Immersed in a musical environment from an early age, he began playing the cello with his father before going on to study with Philippe Muller in Paris, with Truls Mørk in Oslo and at the Juilliard School of Music in New York with Timothy Eddy. His career quickly led him to meet and share the stage with artists from all backgrounds, such as David Grimal, Nicholas Angelich, Pierre Fouchenneret, Léa Hennino, Richard Galliano and Elliot Jenicot. Since 2016, his enthusiastic collaboration with the pianist Guillaume Bellom has led them to often appear in recital. He also regularly performs in trio with Guillaume Chilemme and Nathanaël Gouin. Finally, in 2019 he became a member of the Hermès quartet, exploring a repertoire of an inexhaustible richness.
Equally at ease in the concerto repertoire, he has performed as a soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, under the baton of conductors such as Heinrich Schiff, Daniele Gatti and Dimitry Sitkovetsky. An all-round musician, he regularly plays as a principal chair member in the ensemble without conductor “Les Dissonances”, tackling with them the great orchestral scores, from Beethoven’s Symphonies to the works of Stravinsky, Bartók and Ravel.
These various experiences have nourished his already abundant discography, which includes about fifteen opuses and was unanimously acclaimed by the press and the public alike, since the release of his first CD dedicated to the solo cello repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries. A strong defender of the music of his time, he has worked with many contemporary composers. The première of Richard Dubugnon’s Concerto for cello and wind orchestra was used for the movie “Ce qu’il faut de silences”, directed by Thierry Augé. Also noteworthy are his recordings of Camille Pépin’s The Sound of Trees, a concerto for cello and clarinet, and Dolmen, a work for solo cello composed by Kryštof Mařatka. In a different field, his collaboration with the composer Romain Trouillet led him to record many soundtracks intended for theatre and cinema, such as the shows of the mentalist Viktor Vincent or the music for the short film “Homesick” by Koya Kamura.
Fond of Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry, he designed “Illuminations”, a show mixing poems from the eponymous album with Britten’s Suites for solo cello, in which he himself appears as the narrator, and which has also been recorded on CD.
He had the great fortune to be involved in the making of his cello, made by Patrick Robin, and to play with a bow made for him by Yannick Le Canu. Since 2016, he has been an associate artist with the Singer-Polignac Foundation in Paris.
